Justice, Conflict and Wellbeing

Justice, Conflict and Wellbeing
Brian H. Bornstein • Richard L. Wiener

Editors
Justice, Conflict and

Wellbeing
Multidisciplinary Perspectives
1 3
Editors
Brian H. Bornstein Richard L. Wiener
Department of Psychology Department of Psychology
University of Nebraska-Lincoln University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lincoln Lincoln
Nebraska Nebraska
USA USA
ISBN 978-1-4939-0622-2 ISBN 978-1-4939-0623-9 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-1-4939-0623-9
Springer Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014943418
© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

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Preface: Justice, Conflict and Wellbeing:
An Introduction
The present book includes not one, or even two, but three enormous topics, each of
which is broad and deep enough in its own right that it would be impossible to cover
adequately in a single volume. Justice. Conflict. Wellbeing. What do these words
mean, where do they intersect, and how do social science researchers investigate
them? To borrow a phrase from Raymond Carver (1981), what do we talk about
when we talk about justice, conflict and wellbeing? Webster’s College Dictionary
defines them (in part) as follows:
• Justice (n.): The quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral
rightness.
• Conflict (n., though also v.): A fight, battle, or struggle, esp. a prolonged one;
strife.
• Wellbeing (n., also well-being): A good or satisfactory condition of existence; a
state characterized by health, happiness, and prosperity; welfare.
A Google search for “justice and conflict” yielded approximately 167,000,000 re-
sults, with entries covering blogs, books (e.g., Hampshire 2001; Kals and Maes
2012), research centers, policy statements, and so on. Searches combining the other
terms are comparably large and diverse. It therefore seems obvious that when we
talk about justice, conflict, and wellbeing, we’re talking about a large amount of
work that cuts across several social science disciplines.
These definitions make it clear that the three concepts are closely connected:
Conflict often (but not always) impairs wellbeing, whereas justice often (but not
always) enhances it; perceived injustice is a common source of conflict, at multiple
levels; and calls for justice are a common response to conflict. Thus, the valence and
causal connections among the concepts are complex. In addition, each construct has
subtypes, such as distributive and procedural justice, individual and group conflict,
and physical and psychological wellbeing. Moreover, each construct operates at
multiple levels, ranging from individuals, through groups of varying size, to societ-
ies and nations. Consider conflict, for example. Two kids can get in a fight on the
school playground (see Part VI); two neighborhood organizations might go to an
arbitrator to settle a dispute over who has rights to a certain piece of property (see
Part V); or nations go to war over disagreements about sovereignty and territory
v
vi Preface: Justice, Conflict and Wellbeing: An Introduction
(see Part IV). For these same instances, we could ask whether the conflict itself is
just, how to resolve it fairly, and in what ways, positively or negatively, the experi-
ence of conflict or its resolution affects the parties’ wellbeing.
Justice, conflict, and wellbeing are large topics that occupy researchers from
a variety of disciplines, as well as laypeople and policy makers. For example, the
law seeks to further justice, establishes mechanisms to resolve conflict, and has
the capacity both to enhance and to diminish the wellbeing of those who use the
legal system. Psychology, in its various subdisciplines (e.g., social, clinical, cogni-
tive, educational, developmental), seeks to understand the affective, behavioral, and
cognitive underpinnings of justice, conflict, and wellbeing. Other disciplines, such
as philosophy, political science, and sociology have long histories of studying these
topics as well. Although there are established traditions of research on the topics in
multiple disciplines, there is little cross-fertilization across disciplines. This situa-
tion is not particularly surprising, as the social sciences have been relatively slow
to adopt interdisciplinarity (Christakis 2013). Though not surprising, it is unfortu-
nate: Interdisciplinary scholarship yields better science, in terms of having a higher
impact and being more innovative (American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2013;
Wuchty, Jones, and Uzzi 2007; Yamamoto 2013). Interdisciplinary research, which
“integrates information, data, techniques, tools, perspectives, concepts, and/or theo-
ries from two or more disciplines or bodies of specialized knowledge to advance
fundamental understanding or to solve problems whose solutions are beyond the
scope of a single discipline or area of research practice” (Committee on Facilitating
Interdisciplinary Research 2004, p. 2), is harder to perform than multidisciplinary
research, which simply involves multiple disciplines in juxtaposition. Nonetheless,
the latter is often a precursor to the former (Atkinson and Crowe 2006; Chandramo-
han and Fallows 2009; Committee on Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research 2004).
A major goal of the present volume is to establish a multidisciplinary social scien-
tific foundation for the study of justice, conflict, and wellbeing, from which future
interdisciplinary work can proceed.
To that end, the present volume brings together researchers from social, clinical,
and educational psychology; law; and political science. The unifying theme is how
injustice and conflict pose threats to wellbeing, at the micro (individual) and macro
(groups and societies) levels. Multi- and interdisciplinary research are at the van-
guard of science in the twenty-first century, and the present work applies multi- and
interdisciplinary perspectives to the important real-world topics of justice, conflict,
and wellbeing.
The remainder of this volume consists of six parts that sample from the numer-
ous ways that justice, conflict, and wellbeing intersect. Part I contains two chapters
on the theme of distributive justice, which deals with the fairness of outcomes,
especially with respect to the distribution of resources. It is often contrasted with
procedural justice, which focuses on the fairness of the processes used to determine
those outcomes (Lind and Tyler 1988; Tyler 2005). Questions of distributive justice
play a role in a wide swath of human endeavors, ranging from interpersonal inter-
actions (e.g., how to apportion responsibilities and benefits for everyday tasks) to
governmental policies (e.g., allocating foreign aid, welfare benefits, tax burdens,
Preface: Justice, Conflict and Wellbeing: An Introduction vii
etc.; see, generally, Brams and Taylor 1996). Perceived injustice in “who gets what”
is a common source of conflict, whether the conflict takes the form of a heated ar-
gument or a war; whereas a just distribution contributes to the recipient’s sense of
wellbeing. Chap. 1, by Brian Bornstein, Sarah Gervais, Hannah Dietrich, and Justin
Escamilla, introduces different principles of distributive justice (e.g., proportional-
ity, equality, need) and describes original research examining the effect of those
principles, as well as interpersonal power, on resource allocation in experimental
tasks. Their results indicate a strong norm toward egalitarianism. While not disput-
ing the importance of equality in resource allocation, John Scott shows, in Chap. 2,
that equality has a rich history–dating back at least to Aristotle–and has been inter-
preted differently by various thinkers over the years.
Just as an unjust allocation of some commodity can be a source of conflict, so
too can treating people like a commodity—that is, treating them as objects, with-
out human qualities. This occurs in many situations, as when we treat members
of disadvantaged groups (e.g., racial or ethnic minorities) as less than human, or
when individuals’ sexualized body parts overshadow their individual identities. The
two chapters in Part II address the topic of objectification, focusing especially on
its negative consequences for objectified persons’ wellbeing. Chap. 3, by Richard
Wiener, Sarah Gervais, Ena Brnjic, and Gwenith Nuss uses objectification as a
framework for understanding the causes and consequences of hostile environments,
sometimes prohibited in law but sometimes simply in violation of public norms.
The following chapter, by Lee Budesheim, takes a somewhat contrary approach,
asking whether objectification is necessarily harmful, and whether it is avoidable.
It also offers a critique of recent social psychological research on objectification.
According to the definition with which we began this chapter, wellbeing is “a
state characterized by health, happiness, and prosperity.” By definition, then, those
who are ill—whether they suffer from a physical or mental illness—are lacking in
wellbeing. Moreover, their illness can bring them into conflict with others, both
other individuals and social institutions. Conversely, those same institutions, es-
pecially the legal system, have the power to implement and enforce procedures
that can improve the wellbeing of those who need it most, an approach to law and
policy known as therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ; Wexler and Winick 1991, 1996).
Part III explores this issue by focusing on people with mental illness. Chaps. 5 (by
William Spaulding, Elizabeth Cook, and Andrea Avila) and 6 (by Robert Schopp)
apply therapeutic jurisprudence to persons with severe mental illness. Spaulding
and colleagues show how TJ can contribute to the treatment and rehabilitation of
persons with severe and disabling mental illness. The chapter by Schopp discusses
how mental health courts and civil commitment can both enhance mentally ill per-
sons’ wellbeing and protect the public by reducing the risk that they will commit
further crimes. Schopp’s chapter also addresses the role of psychological experts in
predicting whether individuals with mental illness are dangerous. In Chap. 7, David
Wexler—one of the originators of the TJ movement—takes a slightly different tack,
applying its principles to attorneys themselves, who may be in need of intervention
to improve their own wellbeing because of the daily stress that characterizes their
work lives. Wexler shows how work with individuals with psychosocial problems
viii Preface: Justice, Conflict and Wellbeing: An Introduction
can be challenging, thereby threatening the wellbeing of professionals who work

with mentally ill clients, in much the same way (though at a lower level) that living
with and caring for mentally ill family members can have adverse health conse-
quences (e.g., Baronet 1999).
The biggest scale on which conflict occurs, of course, is war. Even in a “just”
war—laying aside the debate over whether such a thing genuinely exists—war un-
deniably exerts an enormous, and mostly negative, impact on the wellbeing of both
soldiers and ordinary citizens. The two chapters in Part IV address this aspect of war
by using the example of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugo-
slavia (ICTY). Chap. 8, by Patrice McMahon and Jennifer Miller, explores how the
ICTY has affected the lives of individuals of various ethnicities and nationalities in
the region affected by the Tribunal. Jelena Subotić, in Chap. 9, focuses on the ICTY
itself, and asks whether it is feasible and just to hold a small number of individuals
accountable for large-scale, political conflict.
Although the major institutional venue for resolving conflicts and obtaining
justice is the legal system, many conflicts are resolved outside the courts, either
because the courts are not the optimal mechanism for some types of dispute reso-
lution, or because the dispute does not rise to the level of a legal infraction. The
book’s final two parts explore these situations of “private justice.” Part V contains
two chapters on alternative dispute resolution (ADR). Although ADR mechanisms
are efficient in many respects, they raise some unique justice-related concerns of
their own. For example, as Kristen Blankley describes in Chap. 10, the ethical rules
(or lack thereof) imposed on arbitrators can both enhance and impede conflict reso-
lution efforts. Moreover, by drawing judges away from traditional careers on the
bench, ADR raises concerns about the quality of justice administered by public
courts. Chap. 11, by Maureen Weston, examines this issue and some of the other
costs associated with ADR.
The book ends with an examination of what many recall as their first experience
with conflict, namely, childhood conflict with peers. Other than in the home, with
siblings, where do such conflicts take place? In schools, on playgrounds (which can
be part of schools or public), on sports fields, and anywhere else children might
congregate. Part VI contains two chapters on childhood conflict. Chap. 12, by Cath-
erine Bohn-Gettler and Anthony Pellegrini, raises the important premise that not all
conflict is necessarily bad, as we all need to learn effective strategies for dealing
with conflict, and schools can help accomplish this goal, especially by allowing
time for recess and providing the structure needed for children to learn to negoti-
ate conflicts with other children. Their chapter summarizes a wealth of research on
the benefits of school recess and the implications for educational policy. Chap. 13,
by Beth Doll and Susan Sarver, extends this argument by looking at the valuable
social skills that children can acquire through experiencing and successfully resolv-
ing conflict with peers on the playground. Their chapter also examines the ways in
which the features of recess and the playground environment can influence chil-
dren’s interactions with peers.
The impetus for this edited volume came from a conference on the same themes that
were held at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in November 2011. Many people’s
Preface: Justice, Conflict and Wellbeing: An Introduction ix
efforts are necessary to produce a successful conference (and book). We are es-
pecially grateful to the speakers/chapter authors for their active participation and
thoughtful contributions; to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for its financial and
administrative support; to Allison Skinner for her assistance in organizing the con-
ference; and to Sharon Panulla and Sylvana Ruggirello at Springer Publishing for
their support in turning a successful conference into what we hope will be a success-
ful book that will contribute to future research on justice, conflict, and wellbeing.
Brian H. Bornstein
Richard L. Wiener
References
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id=11153.
Hampshire, S. (2001). Justice is conflict. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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Lind, E. A., & Tyler, T. R. (1988). The social psychology of procedural justice. New York: Springer.
Tyler, T. R. (2005). Procedural justice (Vol. 1–2). Burlington: Ashgate.
Wexler, D. B., & Winick, B. J. (1991). Therapeutic jurisprudence as a new approach to mental
health law policy analysis and research. University of Miami Law Review, 45, 979–1004.
Wexler, D. B., & Winick, B. J. (1996). Law in a therapeutic key: Developments in therapeutic
jurisprudence. Durham: Carolina Academic Press.
Wuchty, S., Jones, B. F., & Uzzi, B. (2007). The increasing dominance of teams in production of
knowledge. Science, 316, 1036–1039.
Yamamoto, K. R. (2013). Time to play ball. Science, 340, 1375.
Contents
Part I Distributive Justice
1 All Else Being Equal: Overcoming the Egalitarian Norm�� 3

Brian H. Bornstein, Sarah J. Gervais, Hannah L. Dietrich
and Justin Escamilla
2 Cutting Your Cake and Having It Too: Or, Is Equality

a Distributive Justice Principle?�� 31
John T. Scott
Part II Objectification and Discrimination
3 A Psycholegal Model of Hostile Environments: The Role of

Dehumanization�� 59
Richard L. Wiener, Sarah J. Gervais, Ena Brnjic and Gwenith Nuss
4 Exploring the Dark Matter of Objectification�� 97

Thomas Lee Budesheim
Part III Justice and Conflict Involving People with Mental Illness
5 Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Recovery from Severe and

Disabling Mental Illness�� 125
William D. Spaulding, Elizabeth Cook and Andrea Avila
6 Mental Illness, Dangerousness, and Police Power

Interventions in Pursuit of Justice and Well-being�� 149
Robert F. Schopp
7 That’s What Friends Are For: Mentors, Lawyers Assistance

Program (LAP) Lawyers, Therapeutic Jurisprudence, and
Clients with Mental Illness�� 177
David B. Wexler
xi
xii Contents
Part IV Political Conflict, Policy Solutions, and Citizens’ Well-being
8 After Violent Conflict: Justice, Well-being, and International

Criminal Courts�� 197
Patrice C. McMahon and Jennifer L. Miller
9 Complexity of Accountability for Mass Atrocity�� 223

Jelena Subotić
Part V Justice Outside of Court: Alternative Dispute Resolution
10 Advancements in Arbitral Immunity and Judicial Review

of Arbitral Awards Create Ethical Loopholes in Arbitration�� 237
Kristen M. Blankley
11 Retired to Greener Pastures: The Public Costs of Private Judging�� 289

Maureen A. Weston
Part VI Bringing Well-being to Children in Conflict
12 Recess in Primary School: The Disjuncture Between

Educational Policy and Scientific Research�� 313
Catherine M. Bohn-Gettler and Anthony D. Pellegrini
13 Playground Conflicts: Everyday Opportunities for

Children to Manage Conflict�� 337
Beth Doll and Susan Churchill Sarver
Index �� 355

Contributors
Andrea Avila Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lin-

coln, NE, USA
Kristen M. Blankley College of Law, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln,
NE, USA
Catherine M. Bohn-Gettler Education Department, College of Saint Benedict -
Saint John’s University, St. Joseph, MN, USA
Brian H. Bornstein Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
Lincoln, NE, USA
Ena Brnjic Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln,
NE, USA
Thomas Lee Budesheim Department of Psychology, Creighton University,
Omaha, NE, USA
Elizabeth Cook Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
Lincoln, NE, USA
Hannah L. Dietrich Center on Children, Families, and the Law, University of
Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA
Beth Doll Department of Educational Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lin-
coln, Lincoln, NE, USA
Justin Escamilla Center for Research in Law and Justice, University of Illinois-
Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
Sarah J. Gervais Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
Lincoln, NE, USA
Patrice C. McMahon Department of Political Science, University of Nebraska-
Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA
Jennifer L. Miller School of Government and Public Policy, University of
Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
xiii
xiv Contributors
Gwenith Nuss Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lin-

coln, NE, USA
Anthony D. Pellegrini Department of Educational Psychology, University of
Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Susan C. Sarver Deptartment of Child, Youth and Family Studies, University of
Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA
Robert F. Schopp College of Law, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE,
USA
John T. Scott Department of Political Science, University of California-Davis,
Davis, CA, USA
William D. Spaulding Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-
Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA
Jelena Subotić Department of Political Science, Georgia State University,
Atlanta, USA
Maureen A. Weston School of Law, Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA, USA
David B. Wexler School of Law, University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR, USA
and University of Arizona, Tucson, USA
Richard L. Wiener Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
Lincoln, NE, USA
Part I
Distributive Justice
Chapter 1
All Else Being Equal: Overcoming
the Egalitarian Norm
Brian H. Bornstein, Sarah J. Gervais, Hannah L. Dietrich and Justin

Escamilla
“Is it fair?” has been a central question in philosophy and social science for hun-
dreds, if not thousands, of years. A basic problem of all societies regards the al-
location of goods to its members, and understanding distributive justice norms has
normative, empirical, and prescriptive implications. Yet despite the long-standing
interest in questions of distributive justice, empirical research on the topic is of
relatively recent vintage (for review, see Deutsch 1985; Elster 1995, 2004; Frohlich
and Oppenheimer 1992; Lerner and Lerner 1981; Skitka 2009; Skitka and Crosby
2003; Tyler et al. 1997).
Research on distributive justice suggests that individuals’ behavior reflects re-
liance on a number of norms (e.g., equity, equality, need), pervasive social and
contextual influences (e.g., preference for in-group over out-group members (Tajfel
and Turner 1979); different “spheres of justice” (Walzer 1983)), and individual dif-
ferences, such as attitudes and demographic characteristics. For example, men tend
to be more concerned with abstract principles of justice, such as equity (i.e., out-
comes proportional to inputs), whereas women are more oriented toward process
than outcome (Gaeddert 2004; Sweeney and McFarlin 1997).
The allocation of resources to different individuals and groups has a tremendous
impact on many aspects of social life, ranging from personal relations to public
policy-making. For example, individuals allocate both tangible (e.g., money, vari-
ous goods) and intangible (e.g., love, attention) resources to family members and
others in their social circle (Foa and Foa 1974; Marshall et al. 2001; Montada 2003).
B. H. Bornstein () · S. J. Gervais
Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0308, USA
Phone: +1402-472-3743
e-mail: bbornstein2@unl.edu
H. L. Dietrich
Center on Children, Families, and the Law, University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
206 S. 13th St., Suite 1000, Lincoln, NE 68588-0227, USA
J. Escamilla
Center for Research in Law and Justice, University of Illinois-Chicago,
921 W. van Buren St., Suite 230, Chicago, IL 60607, USA
B. H. Bornstein, R. L. Wiener (eds.), Justice, Conflict and Wellbeing, 3
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4939-0623-9_1, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
4 B. H. Bornstein et al.
In work settings, employers distribute jobs (in hiring, promotions), wages, and so
forth (Greenberg and Colquitt 2005). And within the public arena, notions of fair-
ness inform governmental allocations of health care (e.g., Koch 2001); educational
(e.g., Sabbagh et al. 2006) and environmental resources (e.g., Macias 2008); emer-
gency relief (e.g., Scott and Bornstein 2009); tax burdens (Kinsey et al. 1991; Paul
et al. 2006); foreign aid (Roper and Barria 2007); welfare benefits (Marmor et al.
1990); and other government policies and services (see generally Elster 1993; Klue-
gel et al. 1995; Tyler et al. 1997).
Thus, distributive justice research has significant implications for policy-makers
who need to set and evaluate allocation policies. Lessons learned from the studies
are applicable to other distributive schemes, in both the public and private sectors.
Justice judgments have important consequences for people’s thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors, whether they are on the allocating or the receiving end (Fischer and
Skitka 2006; Lerner and Lerner 1981; Lind and Tyler 1988; Skitka and Crosby
2003; Tyler 2006). The research is particularly timely in light of the heightened
public discourse about resource allocation in both sectors in early twenty-first cen-
tury America and elsewhere, such as debates over limited environmental resources,
term limits for government officials, emergency relief, health-care reform, appro-
priate compensation for top business executives, government bailouts, and corpo-
rate downsizing.
In many, if not most instances of resource allocation, a power differential exists:
parents divvy resources (ranging from dessert to their estate) to children, bosses
allocate various goods (e.g., raises, workloads) to employees, and governments dis-
tribute resources (e.g., health care, tax burdens) to citizens. Being in a position
to allocate resources confers power, and conversely, powerful people have more
resources at their disposal than powerless people. Across essentially all distributive
contexts, then, resource allocation is inextricably bound with questions of power—
both the power afforded by the role of allocator or recipient and subjective feelings
of power.
The chapter organization is as follows: First, we present a brief overview of
distributive justice theory, followed by a review of relevant research on power. We
then present two experiments that examine the effect of power and a number of situ-
ational, demographic, and personality variables on individuals’ allocation behavior.
The results indicate a strong norm of equality, which appears to trump other consid-
erations, such as recipients’ apparent need, merit, or similarity to the allocator. The
final section discusses the findings’ implications, such as whether this egalitarian
norm can be overcome, and whether it is desirable to do so.
Distributive Justice Theory: Standards for Resource

Allocation
A basic problem of all societies regards the allocation of goods to its members:
Should it be based on effort, need, or position? Is it fair for some to get more than
others, and under what circumstances? Do perceptions of fairness differ depending
1 All Else Being Equal: Overcoming the Egalitarian Norm 5
on whether one is making the decision regarding resource allocation or one is the
decision recipient?
In most societies, the government or political ideologies provide guidelines for
allocating its resources. For example, in the USA , the government dictates who re-
ceives welfare aid, and how much benefit one receives is based on a list of qualifica-
tions. In this sense, the notion of need drives decisions about distribution. Commu-
nal norms and empathy may increase allocations on the basis of need. The political
ideals of democracy and capitalism, however, propose another method of distribu-
tion—that hard work and persistence lead to success. This notion of distribution
does not require need; it simply implies that anyone—regardless of gender, race, or
socioeconomic status—deserves resources based on merit or the amount of effort
produced. While this does not imply equal distribution, it does suggest equality in
opportunity; people can earn their share of resources. On the other hand, other po-
litical ideologies, such as collectivism, as well as egalitarian beliefs, tend to dictate
relatively equal distributions regardless of individuals’ merit or need. Moreover,
“equality” itself can mean different things in different circumstances (see the chap-
ter by Scott, this volume).
Distributive justice refers to a set of norms for the allocation of resources—
such as money, governmental aid, or various other resources—that rational indi-
viduals would see as legitimate or fair (see generally, Deutsch 1985; Frohlich and
Oppenheimer 1992; Hegtvedt and Cook 2001; Miller 1999; Rawls 1971; Scott, this
volume; Scott et al. 2001). It is often contrasted with procedural justice, which re-
fers to the processes by which outcomes are determined, rather than the outcomes
themselves (Lind and Tyler 1988). Distributive and procedural justice are indepen-
dent constructs that have different antecedents and consequences (e.g., Skitka et al.
2003; Tyler 1994, 2006; Tyler et al. 1997), but they are interrelated. For example,
procedural variables affect judgments about resource distribution as well as about
procedural justice (Brockner et al. 2003; Ramamoorthy and Flood 2004), and out-
come concerns influence judgments of procedural fairness (Heuer et al. 2007). Both
constructs are important, with one often taking precedence over the other depend-
ing on the circumstances (Bornstein and Dietrich 2008; Bornstein and Poser 2007;
Skitka et al. 2003; Tata 2000; Tyler 2006).
Experimental research on allocation behavior shows that it is multifaceted yet
predictable, involving a reliance on many principles. The number and names of
these principles vary, leading one commentator to observe that “new principles of
justice seem to sprout like weeds in a garden” (Folger et al. 1995, p. 261); but most
theories of distributive justice emphasize the distinct allocation principles men-
tioned above, namely, need, merit, and equality (Deutsch 1985; Folger et al. 1995;
Miller 1999; Sabbagh 2002; Scott, this volume). Need implies that those who need
more should receive more, while those who need less should receive less. Merit
functions to distribute benefits proportional to contribution or effort (i.e., one can
earn his or her benefits or goods by working harder or otherwise being more deserv-
ing). Equality is the idea that everyone should get the same amount.1
1
Drawing on Aristotle, Scott (this volume) refers to this situation as absolute equality, as opposed
to proportional equality, which is more akin to merit or equity.
These principles apply in a number of diverse contexts, such as interpersonal be-

havior, organizational/business settings, government programs, and dispute resolu-
tion. Allocators’ sense of what is fair is “complex yet structured” (Scott et al. 2001,
p. 764). Individuals rely on, and make trade-offs among, multiple justice principles
simultaneously (Leventhal et al. 1980; Matania and Yaniv 2007; Michelbach et al.
2003; Mitchell et al. 1993; Ordóñez and Mellers 1993; Scott et al. 2001; Skitka and
Tetlock 1992). Which principle is paramount at any given time varies depending on
a number of individual, situational, and resource factors (e.g., Frohlich and Oppen-
heimer 1992; Michelbach et al. 2003; Mitchell et al. 1993; Sabbagh 2003; Sabbagh
et al. 1994; Scott and Bornstein 2009; Scott et al. 2001; Skitka and Tetlock 1992),
reflecting what Walzer (1983) refers to as “spheres of justice.”
What factors does one consider when making resource allocation decisions? A
variety of characteristics of the situation, allocator, and recipient can come into play.
Not surprisingly, allocators tend to give greater rewards and less punishment to
recipients who are similar to themselves (i.e., in-group members) than to those who
are dissimilar (out-group members; e.g., Huo 2002; Kerr et al. 1995; Tam et al. 2007;
McGregor et al. 1998; see generally Tajfel 1970). The strong tendency to engage in
more charitable giving toward groups with which one identifies more strongly (e.g.,
Brown 1978; Carson 1990; Rimor and Tobin 1990) is further evidence of this in-
group bias in resource allocation. Similarly, allocators—even young children—are
more generous with friends than with familiar non-friends or strangers, especially
when giving more to another means less for oneself (Moore 2009). In-group bias
does have its limits, however; for example, Inness et al. (2004) found that men allo-
cated less money to other men than to women under some conditions—specifically,
when they were in a negative mood and believed that the recipient was less deserv-
ing than they were themselves.
Other recipient characteristics reflect allocators’ reliance on distinct principles of
justice. For example, many allocation programs explicitly consider recipients’ need,
as when welfare workers consider income and number of children in distributing
food stamps and other forms of aid, or when health-care officials consider current
health status when deciding who should receive an organ transplant. The principle
of need is especially likely to take precedence over other principles when a par-
ticular resource is scarce, or when an emergency exists (Scott and Bornstein 2009;
Skitka and Tetlock 1992).
Other allocation situations explicitly emphasize merit, as when a worker’s raise
depends on some measure of productivity (e.g., sales volume, billable hours). The
reliance on merit as a principle for determining resource allocations is pervasive in
a “meritocracy” like the USA (McCoy and Major 2007). Individuals are sensitive
to the degree to which recipients’ effort is responsible for the outcomes they receive
(Scott et al. 2001).
Which distributive principles prevail also depends on the distribution context
and type of resource being allocated (Elster 1993; Foa and Foa 1974; Johnson et al.
2007; Keysar et al. 2008; Matania and Yaniv 2007; Sabbagh 2003; Sabbagh et al.
2006; Walzer 1983). For example, Scott and Bornstein (2009) found that when
making (hypothetical) resource allocations, participants relied more on the principle
of merit than on need or equality when allocating money; but the principle of need
was emphasized when the good was prescription medications. Justice judgments
and behavior also vary as a function of whether one is distributing a good or a
“bad,” such as business costs (Gamliel and Peer 2006; Sabbagh and Schmidt 1998;
van Dijk et al. 1999), and whether the allocation is public or private (Major and
Adams 1983). When allocating goods (positive outcomes), people generally rely
on nonegalitarian principles such as merit or need, whereas they are more likely to
favor equality when allocating bads (negative outcomes; Gamliel and Peer 2006;
Goodwin 1992; Kayser and Lamm 1980).2 From these examples, it is evident that
standards of justice in distribution are context dependent. We examine the distribu-
tion of both a good (money) and a bad (work time) in the current project.
The application of distributive justice principles is complicated further by indi-
vidual characteristics of the one allocating goods and services. For example, con-
servatives are more likely to apply the principle of merit, compared to liberals, who
tend to rely more on the principles of need and equality when allocating resources
(Scott et al. 2001). Women tend to be more concerned with equality and need than
men, who are more concerned with equity or merit (Gaeddert 2004; Johnson et al.
2007; Major and Adams 1983; Major et al. 1989; Marshall et al. 2001; Scott et al.
2001). Moreover, gender differences interact with the context or type of good being
distributed. For example, men have a stronger preference than women for the norm
of equity in the work domain, but not when it comes to relationships (Major et al.
1989). Sabbagh (2003) similarly found that gender differences in preferring equity
varied across resources, generally being greater for particularistic resources (e.g.,
power, prestige) than for more convertible resources (e.g., money).
Michelbach et al. (2003) also found that racial minorities are influenced less
than whites by information about recipients’ merit, perhaps reflecting different val-
ues or underlying beliefs across racial groups (cf. Rasinski 1987). Perceptions of
justice vary cross-culturally and cross-nationally as well (Fischer and Skitka 2006;
Henrich et al. 2005; Miller and Bersoff 1992; Murphy-Berman and Berman 2002;
Tyler et al. 1997). These ethnic and cultural differences suggest that it is important
to assess aspects of individuals’ beliefs that might bear on resource allocation (e.g.,
belief in a strong work ethic, individualism vs. collectivism, political orientation,
etc.), an approach we take in the present research.
Finally, individuals’ ideological beliefs about equity, egalitarianism, and other
aspects of social exchange predict judgments of fairness and support for macro-
level distribution programs, such as social welfare policies (see generally Feld-
man and Steenbergen 2001; Jost et al. 2009). Some of these beliefs also implicate
notions of power, such as power–distance orientation, which reflects conceptions
about the degree of power that authorities should have over subordinates (Hofstede
1980). These dispositional attitudes can moderate people’s justice judgments. For
Some instances of goods versus bads can be construed as a framing effect, as when the with-
2
holding of a desirable commodity (e.g., a raise) is construed as a negative outcome (i.e., a bad),
or the withholding of an undesirable commodity (e.g., forced overtime) is construed as a positive
outcome (i.e., a good; see Gamliel and Peer 2006; Kinsey et al. 1991).
example, the relationship between perceived distributive justice in the workplace

and job satisfaction is stronger for employees low in power–distance orientation
than for employees high in power–distance orientation (Lee et al. 2000).
More transitory individual differences matter as well. Negative moods can lead
allocators to deviate from equitable distributions (Inness et al. 2004), while also
making recipients less willing to accept unequal distributions (Harlé and Sanfey
2007). Thus, it is important to account for a number of individual differences—both
stable dispositions and transitory mood states—in examining distributive justice.
Methodological Considerations Many studies examining principles of distributive
justice use hypothetical situations to determine which justice principles individu-
als prefer in resource allocation (e.g., Frohlich and Oppenheimer 1992; Gamliel
and Peer 2006; Mitchell et al. 1993; Scott and Bornstein 2009; Scott et al. 2001).
In these studies, participants are given a scenario, and asked either to distribute a
given good fairly or to evaluate different possible allocations. Other studies require
participants to allocate actual goods with real consequences for the recipients (e.g.,
Brenner and Vriend 2006; Haselhuhn and Mellers 2005).3 Both approaches have
value, especially considering that many distributive outcomes of interest, such
as those involving courts and government programs, can rarely if ever be studied
experimentally. However, the psychological processes underlying real, consequen-
tial decisions and those underlying hypothetical, “what-if” decisions are often dif-
ferent (Bornstein and McCabe 2005; Hertwig and Ortmann 2001; Kühberger et al.
2002). For purposes of influencing public policy, as well as furthering scientific
theory, it is therefore important to study real behaviors whenever feasible (Hertwig
and Ortmann 2001; MacCoun 2005). The research described below does just that:
We use distributive justice paradigms in which people allocate real resources, such
as time and money.
Another way in which distributive justice research varies is in whether the al-
locator/decision-maker is also one of the recipients. That is, in some cases the al-
locator makes (or evaluates) an allocation between himself and one or more others,
whereas in other cases, the allocator makes an allocation among two or more others,
who may be familiar to the allocator or anonymous. Both of these situations have
real-world parallels, as in a supervisor divvying up a workload between herself
and a coworker, as opposed to dividing the same work between two subordinates.
The psychological processes involved in decision-making tasks where the alloca-
tor has a stake have been investigated experimentally, as in two-player games like
the Ultimatum Game (UG) and the prisoner’s dilemma (Camerer 2003; Deutsch
1985; Schroeder et al. 2003; the UG is described in more detail below). In these
situations, the allocator’s self-interest necessarily competes with abstract notions
3
Studies employing real monetary allocations are probably in the minority in psychology, but
they are common in other fields, such as experimental economics (Camerer 2003; Hertwig and
Ortmann 2001). On the other hand, a fair amount of psychological research does investigate the
allocation of other resources, such as time-on-task (Chen et al. 2001) or helpfulness (Tesser and
Smith 1980). The present research integrates these approaches by using multiple kinds of real-
world allocation tasks.
of fairness, which, though interesting, creates an additional complicating factor.

Because allocators’ motivations inevitably differ in the two paradigms (i.e., be fair
vs. be fair while also maximizing self gain), they may invoke different processes
(Moore 2009). Thus, the present studies involve both situations, where the allocator
is or is not also a recipient.
In summary, the principles that people follow in resource allocation are sys-
tematic, yet the process is complex because it is influenced by a variety of char-
acteristics of the allocator, the recipient, and the situation. Distributive justice has
been studied in a variety of contexts, for many types of resources, and with diverse
research methodologies. The majority of resource allocations imply a power dif-
ferential; the very act of controlling the distribution confers power on the allocator
over the recipient. However, even within more or less powerful roles, people may
subjectively experience different amounts of power. Furthermore, the power per-
spective on resource allocation in the context of distributive justice has not previ-
ously been studied explicitly.
Power Theories
Power has long been considered a fundamental concept in social science (Russell
1938). Power has traditionally, and most frequently, been defined in social influence
terms. Like others, we define social power as the ability to influence others in psy-
chologically meaningful ways (Copeland 1994; French and Raven 1959) through
the giving or withholding of rewards and punishments (Keltner et al. 2003; see also
Gervais and Vescio 2007; Vescio et al. 2005). In this definition, psychologically
meaningful influences include actions that affect the cognitions, emotions, and be-
haviors of another. Powerful people have more control over their own and others’
outcomes than powerless people (Dovidio et al. 1988; Ellyson and Dovidio 1985;
Fiske 1993; Thibaut and Kelley 1959). Dependence and power are also inversely re-
lated (Emerson 1964); those who depend on others for rewards and punishments are
less powerful than those who do not. Classic and contemporary theories of power
(Cartwright 1965; Emerson 1964; Fiske 1993; French and Raven 1959; Keltner
et al. 2003; Thibaut and Kelley 1959) have been used to explain a host of psycho-
logical consequences (see Guinote and Vescio 2010 for review).
French and Raven (1959) described five types of power relationships: (1) Legiti-
mate power is the influence associated with holding a position that confers authority
and legitimates influence (e.g., the power bosses have over employees); (2) Reward
power is the influence associated with the ability to give or withhold rewards (e.g.,
giving raises or promotions); (3) Punishment power is the influence associated with
the ability to give or withhold punishments (e.g., firing an employee); (4) Informa-
tional power is the influence associated with having information desired by others
(e.g., the power of physicians over patients); (5) Referent power is the influence
associated with feelings of oneness and identification with others (e.g., the power
of a charismatic leader over her followers). The allocator role primarily bestows
legitimate, reward, punishment, and informational power over the recipient role.
Allocators are often in positions that grant them legitimacy and authority, as well as
the ability to influence others through distributing or withholding rewards, punish-
ments, and information. Furthermore, powerless people often identify with power-
ful people. Thus, we refer to the power difference between allocators and recipients
on the basis of any (or combinations) of these bases of power as role power.
However, even within allocator and recipient roles, people can experience
different levels of subjective power, which represents the degree to which they
perceive themselves as powerful in a given situation, independent of role power
(Anderson and Berdahl 2002). For example, having power affords people the abil-
ity to act with less interference from others, whereas lacking power renders people
subject to the rewards and punishments of others. The parent who is unable to
stop a temper tantrum from his child has more social power than the child, due to
his role, even though he may not subjectively experience himself as powerful in
that situation. Conversely, people may feel subjective power even when they have
relatively little role power (Fiske et al. 1996; see also Pratto et al. 2008; Saguy
et al. 2008).
Importantly, most existing research has focused on instances where roles and
subjective experiences of power match. This focus is warranted because people in
positions of power also tend to feel relatively powerful, whereas people in positions
of low power tend to feel relatively powerless (Anderson and Berdahl 2002). How-
ever, sometimes there is a mismatch between powerful positions and subjective
experiences of power. For example, a parent might feel powerless over a screaming
child, a boss might feel powerless after having her legitimacy questioned by an
employee, or a President belonging to one party might feel powerless when bat-
tling a Congress controlled by the other party. In those situations, the powerful can
feel relatively powerless, whereas the powerless can feel powerful, even though
the powerful party objectively has more influence than the powerless party. And
mismatches between role and subjective power can significantly alter the behaviors
of allocators and recipients (e.g., Bugental et al. 1997; Lammers et al. 2008; Maner
et al. 2007).
Many classic theories assume that power has a corruptive influence (e.g., Kipnis
1972), but contemporary theories suggest that powerful people act in both exploit-
ative and benevolent ways, depending on the situation (e.g., Galinsky et al. 2003;
Gervais et al. in press; Gervais and Vescio 2007; Guinote 2007a, b; Handgraaf et al.
2008; Schmid Mast et al. 2009; Vescio et al. 2005) and their individual disposi-
tions (e.g., Chen et al. 2009, 2001; Schmid Mast et al. 2009; Vescio et al. 2006).
According to situated power theories, powerful people are better able to act in situ-
ation-appropriate ways than powerless people because power is associated with the
ability to focus on cues relevant to the situation and to ignore cues irrelevant to the
situation (Guinote 2007a, b; see also Smith et al. 2008).
Galinsky et al. (2003), for example, found that powerful (vs. powerless) people
were more likely to take risky action and help themselves to a greater proportion of
resources in a common pool when the norms of the situation dictated such action.
High-power people were also more likely than low-power people to remove an
aversive stimulus (e.g., an annoying fan) from a work environment and give more
resources to a common pool when communal norms were salient. Similarly, Vescio
et al. (2005) found that powerful people only stereotyped their subordinates when
stereotypes matched powerful people’s primed beliefs about appropriate ways to
influence their subordinates (see also Overbeck and Park 2001). Finally, Guinote
(2008) demonstrated that powerful people respond to both social and work situa-
tions in line with what the situation affords more than powerless people. Extending
this to justice, allocators with high subjective power should be more sensitive to and
more likely to act in response to situational norms of distributive justice for resource
allocation than allocators with low subjective power.
Elevations in power also enhance the likelihood that people will behave in line
with their own desires (Chen et al. 2001). Increased power is associated with an
abundance of resources (e.g., material assets) and few constraints (e.g., freedom
from the punishments of others). Added resources and freedom from constraints
result in situations where internal states and individual differences are likely to be
expressed (Galinsky et al. 2008; Schmid Mast et al. 2009). Chen et al. (2001), for
example, demonstrated that power enhanced people’s dispositional tendencies to
behave in egoistic or benevolent ways; when divvying up tasks between themselves
and another, exchange-oriented powerful people were more likely to assign their
partner tasks that would take more time (i.e., allocating a bad), whereas communal-
oriented powerful people were more likely to assign their partner tasks that would
take less time, compared to their powerless counterparts. Extending this to the cur-
rent work, allocators primed with power should be more likely to allocate resources
in ways that reflect their individual dispositions.
Despite the importance of this issue, the empirical research examining subjective
experiences of power in the distributive justice and power literatures is lacking. Fur-
thermore, most of the research that has examined the mismatch between role power
and subjective power has focused on when powerful people make decisions that are
beneficial to the self and detrimental to powerless people (e.g., Maner and Mead
2010; Van Vugt 2006). However, in many distributive justice situations, allocators
make decisions that have little to no direct benefit to the self. As a result, there is
a critical need to examine instances when role power and subjective power do not
match for the distribution of goods to others.
Just as gender is central to questions of distributive justice, so does it figure in
discussions of power. Women are less likely to be in powerful positions (e.g., busi-
ness, military, or family leaders); and compared to men in the same role, women
often feel themselves to be less powerful and in less control (Eagly and Karau
2002; see also Davies et al. 2005). Thus, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to
consider questions of either justice or power without considering the role of gender.
This project integrates theories of distributive justice and power as a framework
for understanding the fairness of allocation behavior. It addresses the question of
distribution fairness by studying multiple allocation contexts involving different
resources, perceptions and behaviors of male and female allocators, and primes
that heighten the salience of distributive justice norms, subjective power, and group
membership.
Integrating Power and Distributive Justice
Importantly, people who are in powerful positions (e.g., government officials, em-
ployers, professors) often decide how to allocate goods to other people. As exempli-
fied by the different bases of power, powerful people often have access to rewards,
punishments, and information. How might power holders make decisions about the
appropriate allocation of these resources? According to theories on power, how and
why powerful people allocate goods may depend on both situational norms and
their individual beliefs about what constitutes fair resource allocation.
Although research on resource allocation has not manipulated power explicitly,
relevant research has been done within the context of two-person games. For ex-
ample, the UG is a well-studied social decision task that developed in experimen-
tal economics (Camerer 2003; Guth et al. 1982) but has since been employed as
a social psychological research paradigm for studying fairness in social interac-
tions (e.g., Blount 1995; Handgraaf et al. 2008; Harlé and Sanfey 2007; Larrick and
Blount 1997; van Dijk and Vermunt 2000). The UG consists of two players who de-
cide how to split a given sum of money. One player (the “proposer” or “allocator”)
makes an offer to the second player (the “recipient” or “responder”) who can either
accept or reject the offer. If the second player chooses to accept, both participants
receive their share of the offer. If the second player rejects the offer, however, then
neither player receives anything.
It is interesting to assess the UG from a power perspective. On the one hand,
the allocator seems to have greater power, in that he/she decides how to split the
pot, without any input from the recipient, and has a greater chance of winding up
with more than 50 % of the total resources. On the other hand, the recipient controls
whether both players get any money at all, which seems to confer greater power
on the recipient, despite the fact that the recipient almost never receives more than
50 % of the resources (Camerer 2003). Previous research on the UG has not ad-
dressed questions of power, which are a focus of the present studies.
A related experimental paradigm is the Dictator Game (DG), which differs from
the UG in that the responder does not have the option of rejecting the allocator’s
offer (Camerer 2003; van Dijk and Vermunt 2000). This means that the responder is
totally powerless in the DG, which can lead to different behaviors in the two types
of situations (van Dijk and Vermunt 2000; Handgraaf et al. 2008).
From a normative, rational perspective, it is in the best interest of the first player
in an UG to offer as little money as possible, and the second player is best-off to
accept any proposed offer, regardless of how little the offer is, because some money
is better than none. Studies show, however, that allocators often offer substantial
non-zero sums, with modal offers around 50 % of the pot; whereas responders re-
ject “low” offers—commonly operationalized as approximately 25 % of the pot or
less—about half the time (Camerer 2003; Guth et al. 1982). The rational behavior
in the DG is, again, to offer very little money—and possibly none at all. Yet DG al-
locators offer significantly non-zero amounts, even more than they offer in an UG,
where they have less power (Handgraaf et al. 2008).
These departures from rationality suggest strongly that these games activate no-
tions of distributive justice, as well as strategic decision making (e.g., concern that
too low an offer would be rejected; see Henrich et al. 2005; Kagel and Roth 1995),
in both responders and allocators (Guth and Tietz 1990). Because of strategic and
other (e.g., emotional) considerations, departures from rational choice theory can be
justified (Hardy-Vallée and Thagard 2008).
Taken together, the distributive justice and power literatures suggest that how
and why powerful and powerless people allocate goods and respond to allocations
of goods depends on both situational norms and their individual beliefs about what
constitutes fair resource allocation. The research on power and resource allocation
is intriguing, but it is limited because it has not explored the principles of fairness
relied upon by allocators varying in power. Power is unlikely to exert a blanket ef-
fect in terms of creating generous or stingy allocators, but rather, should exacerbate
the tendency to behave in line with one’s own beliefs about fairness and should
make one more sensitive to situational cues and recipient characteristics.
The current research addresses several theoretical gaps within the power and
distributive justice literatures. Although power research has included allocation
tasks, these studies have not focused on which allocation principles people use
when making decisions (e.g., Chen et al. 2001; Handgraaf et al. 2008). Similarly,
although distributive justice research typically involves relatively powerful actors
distributing some resource (e.g., money) to relatively powerless recipients, these
studies have neither experimentally manipulated nor assessed power. Additionally,
although social power is often inherent to roles (i.e., allocators have more power
than recipients by definition), people may experience subjective power differently
within these roles (Keltner et al. 2003; McClelland 1975, 1987; Ng 1980; van Dijke
and Poppe 2006; Winter 1973, 1988).
The current set of experiments addresses these issues by investigating how pow-
er and principles of distributive justice influence resource distribution by allocators.
The experiments examine allocation of two different resources: money (Experi-
ment 1) and time on work assignments (Experiment 2). The experiments address
individual differences by examining variables such as gender, political orientation,
communal orientation, merit orientation, work ethic, egalitarianism, collectivism,
and empathy.
Experiment 1: Power, Distributive Justice, and Group Membership

in the Ultimatum Game
In Experiment 1, we examined how people who had role power through their natu-
rally occurring positions divvied up resources using variations of the UG. Specifi-
cally, participants took on the allocator role in the UG, the modified UG, or the DG.
These different versions of a two-player paradigm vary the degree to which the al-
locator has power. With the original version of the UG, the allocator makes an offer,
but the recipient ultimately decides whether to accept or reject the offer, and thus,
the allocator is relatively low in power. With the modified version of the UG, the
allocator always receives a proportion of his or her offer, even when the responder
rejects the proposed offer (but receives more when the responder accepts); thus, the
allocator has a moderate amount of power. Finally, with the DG, the allocator makes
the offer and the recipient must accept the offer, and thus, the allocator is relatively
high in power. Using variations of this game allowed us to examine how allocators
distribute money (i.e., a good) when they have varying levels of power.
Hypothesis 1 We hypothesized that participants playing the DG would offer less
money compared to participants playing the modified UG and the UG. We rea-
soned that because participants playing the DG would feel more powerful (vs. the
modified and original UGs), they would offer the recipient less money (but see also
Handgraaf et al. 2008). We also hypothesized that participants playing the modified
UG would offer less money compared to participants playing the UG. We reasoned
that because participants playing the modified UG would feel more powerful than
participants playing the UG, they would offer the recipient less money.
Hypothesis 2 We also hypothesized that male allocators would offer less money
than female allocators. This hypothesis stems from the notion that women often feel
less subjectively powerful than men, even when they are in powerful roles (Eagly
and Karau 2002). Additionally, the female gender roles require that women be more
communally oriented and relationship focused (Eagly and Wood 1991), and focus-
ing on the needs of others may lead to giving more resources to the recipient.
Hypothesis 3 Finally, we also varied features of both the situation and the recipi-
ent to examine further whether allocators would distribute more money not only
to themselves but also to people who are like themselves, that is, members of their
in-group (vs. out-group). We reasoned that people with more power would be more
generous in their offerings to fellow in-group members than out-group members
(i.e., a power × recipient interaction). Social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner 1979)
suggests that we tend to favor people who are members of our in-groups because we
get a sense of self-esteem and belonging through in-group favoritism. These effects
are particularly pronounced when people’s mortality is salient because favoring in-
groups is a means of reducing the threat associated with awareness of one’s mortal-
ity (Jonas et al. 2002; see Burke et al. 2010 for review). Thus, we hypothesized that
people would favor in-groups, offering them more money than out-groups, particu-
larly when their mortality was salient.
Method
Participants and Design Participants were 37 undergraduates who received up to

$10 for their participation. Specifically, participants received the amount of money
they allocated to themselves during two rounds of the UG, modified UG, or DG.
Participants were randomly assigned to a 3 (game: ultimatum, modified ultimatum,
or dictator) × 2 (mortality: salient or control) × 2 (group: in-group and out-group)
mixed model design. Group was the within participants factor. We included gender
as a factor as well.
Procedure After obtaining informed consent, participants learned that they would
be playing a game in which one participant would be the allocator and the other
participant would be the recipient. The allocator would play the game twice and
would distribute $5 between him/herself and the recipient for each game. In the
UG condition, participants learned that the allocator would make an initial offer to
divvy up the $5 and the recipient could choose whether to accept or reject the offer.
If the recipient accepted the offer, then the money would be divided according to the
offer. If the recipient rejected the offer, then neither the allocator nor the recipient
would get any money. The modified ultimatum condition was the same, except in
this version, the allocator would always receive money, regardless of whether or not
the responder accepted or rejected the proposed offer. If the responder accepted the
proposed offer, both players would receive the amount proposed by the allocator.
If, however, the responder rejected the offer, the allocator would still receive half
( δ = 0.5) of the amount he or she originally allocated to him- or herself in the origi-
nal offer, but the responder would get no money. Finally, in the DG, participants
learned that the allocator would distribute the $5 and the recipient was required to
accept the offer. Next, participants were ostensibly assigned to the allocator position
through a coin toss, but in actuality the toss was rigged and all participants were
assigned to the allocator position.
Mortality salience (MS) was then manipulated. Participants were told they
would be taking an assessment designed to understand the relationship between
personality and feelings and attitudes about significant aspects of life. The standard
MS manipulation (responding to two questions about death or dental pain; Green-
berg et al. 1986) was used. Participants respond to either the death or dental pain
variation of the following two statements: (1) “Please briefly describe the emo-
tions that the thought of your own death (dental pain) arouses in you”; (2) “Type,
as specifically as you can, what you think will happen to you as you (experience
dental pain) physically die and once you are physically dead.” Participants were
given 3 min to write a response to each question, before advancing to the next part
of the study.
Participants played the game twice: one time where the recipient was an in-group
member, and the other time where the recipient was an out-group member. Order
was counterbalanced. To manipulate in-group versus out-group membership, par-
ticipants read an essay ostensibly written by the other participant that included pro-
American (in-group) or anti-American (out-group) beliefs (Greenberg et al. 1992).
Specifically, in the in-group condition, participants read:
People in this country have a great amount of freedom. Here there is freedom to go to
school, freedom to work in any job you want. In this country people can go to school and
train for the job they want. Here anyone who works hard can make their own success. In
other countries, most people live in poverty with no chance of escape. In this country,
people have more opportunity for success than in any other and success does not depend
on the group you belong to. While there are problems in any country, America truly is a
great nation.
In the out-group condition, participants read:

I believe the United States of America is the “land of opportunity” but this is only true for
the rich. The system here is set up for the rich against the poor. All people care about here
is money and trying to have more than other people. There is no sympathy for people. It’s
all one group putting down others and nobody cares about the poor. The people only let
foreigners have jobs like picking fruit or washing dishes because no American would do
it. Americans are spoiled and lazy and want everything handed to them. America is a cold
country that is insensitive to the need and problems of its members. It thinks it’s a great
country, but it’s not.
After each essay, participants answered a series of questions about the author of the
essay: How much participants liked the author, how intelligent and knowledgeable
they thought the author was, how much they agreed with the author’s opinion of
America, and how true the author’s opinion of America was (Greenberg et al. 1992).
The questions were all rated on a nine-point scale (1 = not at all, 9 = totally).
Following each round of the game, participants were asked to complete the
manipulation checks. Participants were asked two questions about power: “Who
had the power in the game?” (1 = allocator, 9 = recipient; reverse coded) and “How
powerful do you feel in this game?” (1 = not at all, 9 = very powerful). Participants
completed these judgments for both rounds of the game. Negatively worded items
were reverse coded, and we computed a mean subjective power score ( α = 0.89),
with higher numbers indicating more power. Additionally, participants were asked
to indicate how similar they were to the recipient (1 = very dissimilar, 5 = very simi-
lar). This item was used to assess in-group versus out-group similarity.
Finally, participants completed a mood questionnaire (the Positive and Negative
Affect Schedule, PANAS-X; Watson et al. 1988) and demographic survey. A posi-
tive mood score was calculated by taking the mean of inspired, alert, excited, en-
thused, and determined ( α = 0.79), with higher numbers indicating more positive
emotion. A negative mood score was calculated by calculating the mean of distress,
scared, nervous, upset, and afraid ( α = 0.76), with higher numbers indicating more
negative emotion. The mood results were uninformative, so we do not discuss them
further. Participants were then paid and thoroughly debriefed.
Results and Discussion
Power An effect of game on power scores demonstrated that type of game affected
power in the expected direction, F(1, 35) = 11.87, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.41. Playing the
DG was associated with the most power (M = 7.68, SD = 0.69), followed by the
modified UG (M = 6.44, SD = 1.95), followed by the UG (M = 4.75, SD = 1.64). The
differences between the DG and the UG ( p < 0.001) and the modified UG and the
UG ( p = 0.009) were significant, whereas the difference between the DG and modi-
fied UG was marginally significant ( p = 0.065). Thus, the manipulation of game
effectively varied subjective power.
Group An effect of group on similarity scores demonstrated that group affected
perceived similarity in the expected direction, F(1, 35) = 9.42, p = 0.004, ηp2 = 0.21.
The in-group recipient (M = 3.54, SD = 1.10) was regarded as more similar to the
allocator than the out-group recipient (M = 2.81, SD = 1.00).
Recipient Offers The mean recipient offer was slightly less than half (M = 2.36,
SD = 1.15). However, almost half of participants (48.6 %) made an equal distribu-
tion between the allocator and recipient ($2.50), although 5.4 % offered nothing to
the recipient; surprisingly, even more (8.1 %) offered the entire $5 to the recipient.
To test our hypotheses, recipient offers were submitted to a 3 game (ultimatum,
modified ultimatum, or dictator) × 2 gender (men or women) × 2 mortality (salient
or control) × 2 recipient (in-group and out-group) mixed model analysis of variance
(ANOVA). Recipient was the within participants factor. This analysis did not reveal
a significant effect of game, F(1, 35) = 0.28, p = 0.76, ηp2 = 0.02, which is inconsis-
tent with Hypothesis 1. However, the means were somewhat in the hypothesized di-
rection, with the DG ( M = $2.13, SE =0 .31) resulting in lower offers than the modi-
fied ultimatum ( M = $2.41, SE = 0.31) and ultimatum ( M = $2.40, SE = 0.27) games.
Consistent with Hypothesis 2, there was a significant effect of gender, F(1,
35) = 5.92, p <0 .022, ηp2 = 0.20, with women ( M = $2.72, SE = 0.23) making high-
er offers than men ( M = $1.90, SE = 0.26). This is consistent with the notion that
women generally feel less power and control than men and that women are more
communally oriented and relationship focused than men. Thus, women make higher
offers than men, regardless of role power. In fact, the mean offer female allocators
made to recipients was more than half of the money.
Finally, there was a significant recipient × mortality salience interaction, F(1,
35) = 5.19, p < 0.031. When mortality was not salient, participants made (nonsig-
nificantly) higher allocations to in-group recipients ( M = $2.59, SE = 0.29) than
out-group recipients ( M = $2.13, SE = 0.30); whereas when mortality was salient,
this pattern was reversed, with participants making (nonsignificantly) higher al-
locations to out-group recipients ( M = $2.49, SE = 0.27) than in-group recipients
( M = $2.04, SE = 0.26). Although this finding is inconsistent with Hypothesis 3,
it is consistent with research suggesting that in-group favoritism can be reduced
and sometimes reversed (resulting in out-group favoritism), depending on which
identities are salient (Giannakakis and Fritsche 2011). For example, making su-
perordinate identities salient can reduce, and sometimes even reverse, in-group
bias (Giannakakis and Fritsche 2011). Applied to the present work, it is possible
that reading an anti- and pro-American essay served to remind participants of the
superordinate identity of being American, regardless of whether one holds pro- or
anti-American beliefs.
Experiment 2: Power, Distributive Justice, and Merit in Work

Allocation
Rather than examining subjective power as it varies naturally across different

kinds of tasks, as in Experiment 1, Experiment 2 manipulated allocators’ subjec-
tive power, as well as the justice principle of merit, to investigate their influence on
a different kind of allocation task (i.e., time at work). We manipulated power and
merit by priming tasks, and we manipulated merit further by varying the deserving-
ness of the allocation recipient. This allowed us to investigate merit as both a feature
of the situation and a feature of the individual receiving the distribution. We also
examined a different kind of resource, shifting from monetary allocation (a good) to
the distribution of work and time in a shared-effort task (a bad).
Hypothesis 1 Our first hypothesis addresses the effect on resource allocation of a
match (or mismatch) between situational or dispositional goals and recipient fea-
tures. In general, powerful (vs. powerless) participants should be more likely to
adhere to a given principle of distributive justice when that principle is made salient
by virtue of recipient characteristics, and when that same principle is consistent
with either the allocator’s disposition or situational cues. Specifically, when the
norms of the situation call for taking recipients’ merit into account and one of the
recipients is more deserving, then powerful people will allocate more resources on
the basis of merit than powerless people.
Hypothesis 2 Because individuals vary in terms of their dispositional tendency
to behave in need-based, merit-based, or equality-based ways, a number of indi-
vidual difference variables should predict allocation behavior and recipient per-
ceptions. We assessed a number of attitudes, beliefs, and response orientations
that are likely to be correlated with dispositional distributive justice perspectives,
such as empathy and communal orientation; work ethic and meritocracy beliefs,
which should be especially relevant to merit; and egalitarianism and collectiv-
ism. Political orientation and gender, which are correlated with justice beliefs
(e.g., Jost et al. 2009; Marshall et al. 2001; Scott et al. 2001), were included as
well.
Participants and Design Participants were 103 undergraduates who received course
credit. Participants were randomly assigned to one of eight conditions, resulting
from a 2 (power: powerful vs. powerless) × 2 (situation merit: high vs. control) ×
2 (recipient merit: high vs. low) between participants design. There were 10–15
participants per condition.
Procedure Participants were told that the session involved three separate studies,
two completed individually and one in teams. Power was manipulated by ask-
ing participants to complete a scrambled sentence-priming task consisting of 16
items (Smith and Trope 2006). Five words for each item were listed and partici-
pants had to use four of the words to make a grammatically correct sentence. In
the high-power condition, 8 of the 16 sets of words contained a word related to
having power (i.e., authority, captain, commands, controls, dominates, executive,
influenced, privileged). In the low-power condition, the same eight sets contained
a word related to lacking power (i.e., complied, janitor, obey, passive, servant, sub-
mits, subordinate, yield).
Then participants were told that the second study concerned reading compre-
hension. Situation merit was primed by having participants complete an additional
scrambled sentence task (McCoy and Major 2007). Participants unscrambled either
sentences that endorsed meritocracy (e.g., effort positive prosperity leads to) or con-
trol sentences (e.g., by college goes quickly time).
After answering five reading comprehension questions about the sentences, par-
ticipants were led to another room. Participants learned that the final study would
examine resource distribution in teams; a rigged draw assigned all participants to
the role of allocator. The experimenter informed the participant that the two other
participants were still working on the reading comprehension task. To manipulate
recipient merit, we gave participants information about why one of the fellow par-
ticipants (the confederate) was late. In the low-merit condition, participants learned
that one confederate arrived to the experiment 15 min late. In the high-merit condi-
tion, participants learned that one confederate completed both tasks on time, but
that the computer crashed after the reading comprehension task, so the participant
was completing the task again. In both conditions, no information was provided
about the other fellow participant (in reality, there was no other participant, though
participants were led to believe that there was one in another cubicle; we therefore
refer to this person as the “ghost participant”).
While the experimenter ostensibly checked on the other participants, the experi-
menter handed the participant a list of 11 fictitious tasks, each listed with a different
amount of time required to complete it (listed in descending order, e.g., 7, 6, 5, 2,
2 and 1 min). The total time required to complete all of the exercises (38 min) was
printed at the bottom of the list (see Chen et al. 2001 for a similar time allotment
task). Participants were simply told to allocate the tasks between the other two par-
ticipants. The procedure was timed so that approximately 25 min remained in the
session; this way all participants made their choices with the same amount of time
left in the session, and both recipients apparently still had time to complete the
remaining tasks.
Once participants allocated the tasks, the experimenter instructed the participants
to complete a final set of individual difference measures, including: the PANAS-X;
the Protestant Work Ethic Scale (PWES, 11 items; Katz and Hass 1988); a Human-
itarianism-Egalitarianism scale (HE, 10 items; Katz and Hass 1988); the Interper-
sonal Reactivity Index (IRI, 28 items; Davis 1980, 1983), a measure of empathy; a
measure of communal exchange orientation (CXO, 23 items; Gervais et al. 2010;
based on Clark et al. 1987); the Individualism/Collectivism Scale (IC, 16 items;
Triandis and Gelfand 1998); and Belief in Individual Mobility (BIM, 4 items; Major
et al. 2002), a measure of one’s belief that individuals from all ethnic backgrounds
have equal opportunity for advancement in the American system. All of the scales
had acceptable reliability (see Table 1.1).
Participants rated the task’s distributive and procedural fairness (“The assign-
ment of tasks that I made was fair,” “The procedure by which the tasks were as-
signed was fair”), using 5-point agree/disagree scales. They also indicated their
political orientation on a scale ranging from 1 ( strong conservative) to 5 ( strong
liberal). Finally, participants completed the remaining manipulation checks and
were debriefed.
Table 1.1 Scale reliability

Scale Reliability ( α)
PWES 0.72
IRI 0.80
BIM 0.66
IC 0.74
CXO 0.64
HE 0.77
PWES protestant work ethic scale, IRI interpersonal
reactivity index, BIM belief in mobility, IC individualism/
collectivism, CXO communal exchange orientation, HE
humanitarianism-egalitarianism
Results and Discussion
Manipulation Checks Several questions assessed participants’ attention to the

recipient merit manipulation (e.g., the other person’s computer crashing). Six par-
ticipants missed one or more of these questions, so they were excluded from all
subsequent analyses. Additional questions assessed the effectiveness of the power
and merit primes (not all participants answered these questions). Two questions
gauged participants’ sense of power: “I feel powerful” and “I feel like I have
control in this situation.” Responses were highly correlated, r = 0.64, p < 0.001,
so were summed to create a single measure of subjective power (higher numbers
indicated more power). High-power participants (M = 8.51, SD = 2.59) reported
feeling slightly more powerful than low-power participants (M = 7.98, SD = 3.00),
but this difference was not statistically significant, t(77) = 0.85, p = 0.40.
Three questions measured participants’ belief about merit in American soci-
ety (e.g., “In our society, harder work leads to better outcomes”). Responses were
intercorrelated, rs = 0.24 − 0.31, ps < 0.05, so they were summed to create a single
measure of merit belief (higher numbers indicated a stronger belief). The merit be-
liefs of high- (M = 14.32, SD = 3.9) and low-situation merit participants (M = 15.15,
SD = 2.43) did not differ, t(77) = 1.30, p = 0.20. Thus, the two manipulations de-
signed to prime situational power and merit were relatively ineffective, despite their
use in previous studies (McCoy and Major 2007; Smith and Trope 2006). Subse-
quent analyses collapsed across these variables.
Work Allocation and Fairness Ratings The principal dependent measures were the
amount of work (in minutes) assigned to the confederate, and perceptions of dis-
tributive and procedural fairness. Recipient merit did not affect participants’ work
assignments, t(95) = 0.27, p = 0.79 (Ms = 18.82 vs. 18.72 for high and low merit,
respectively). Recipient merit also did not affect participants’ perception of fairness
for either the allocation outcome, t(91) = 1.49, p = 0.14 (Ms = 1.71 vs. 1.93 for high
and low merit, respectively), or the procedure, t(82) = 0.38, p = 0.70 (Ms = 2.00 vs.
1.92 for high and low merit, respectively).
Individual Differences Allocation was not significantly correlated with any of the
individual difference measures or political orientation, although the correlation
between negative affect on the PANAS and allocation was marginally significant,
r = 0.22, p = 0.065. The stronger participants’ negative mood, the more time they
assigned to the confederate. Some of the scales were correlated with one another.
For example, the PWES was correlated with mobility belief ( r = 0.40, p = 0.001) and
political orientation ( r = − 0.32, p = 0.012). The egalitarianism scale was correlated
with empathy, r = 0.35, p = 0.002, as well as CXO, r = − 0.36, p = 0.002. Specifical-
ly, participants who were more empathetic, and less exchange oriented, had more
egalitarian beliefs.
Men and women did not differ on the various individual difference measures.
However, there was a nonsignificant trend for women to be somewhat more egali-
tarian (Ms = 3.75 vs. 3.47), t(69) = 1.37, p = 0.175. Women also had a higher belief
in merit (Ms = 15.16 vs. 13.29), t(76) = 2.46, p = 0.016.
Egalitarianism Given the strong tendency of participants in Experiment 1 to make
an equal allocation, we examined egalitarianism more closely. Overall, participants
assigned as much work to the confederate (M = 18.79, SD = 1.92) as to the ghost par-
ticipant (M = 19.17, SD = 1.87), t(97) = 1.02, p = 0.31. This result suggests a strong
egalitarian norm. Supporting this tendency, although the number of minutes as-
signed to the confederate ranged from 13–23, the modal response (27.6 %) was
right at the midpoint (19). Moreover, 63.3 % of participants assigned 18–20 min,
and 86.8 % of participants assigned 17–21 min. Thus, the data show a reluctance to
deviate little, if any, from a strictly egalitarian apportionment.
General Discussion
Summary of Major Findings The major finding from the present studies was that
allocators evinced a strong egalitarian norm. In Experiment 1, nearly 50 % of par-
ticipants split the amount exactly in half; and in Experiment 2, over 60 % made
a practically equal apportionment (assigning 18–20 min). This is a higher rate of
egalitarian behavior than demonstrated in previous research. For example, Scott
and Bornstein (2009) identified only 9.5 % of their participants as “strict egalitar-
ians,” which they defined as preferring an equal split of resources even when other
considerations, such as merit and need, favored an unequal distribution. They found
that egalitarianism was relied on more for some types of resources (e.g., food) than
others (e.g., money, medicine), but the rate still did not exceed 20 % in any of the
conditions—much lower than the rate observed here. Moreover, Experiment 1
found a much higher rate of egalitarianism using money, one of the same goods
used by Scott and Bornstein (2009), and on a “micro-level” allocation task, where
Scott (this volume) would predict less egalitarianism than on a “macro-level” task.
In addition, the high rate of egalitarianism observed here was for strict, or absolute,
equality; the rate for relative equality, which borders on equity, would likely be even
higher (see Scott, this volume).
There are two important distinctions between the present research and the
Scott and Bornstein (2009) study. First, we used actual money, whereas Scott and
Bornstein’s participants made hypothetical decisions. Decision-making processes
are often different depending on whether the decision has real anticipated conse-
quences or merely hypothetical ones (Bornstein and McCabe 2005; Kühberger
2002). Egalitarianism might be stronger when allocation involves actual goods,
as in the present studies, as opposed to studies involving hypothetical allocations
or a mere expression of preferences. Allocating disparate amounts, even to unseen
recipients, can be awkward and embarrassing; it is therefore easier in the abstract
than in actuality. There is often a disjunction between what people say they would
do in various social situations and what they actually do when placed in those
situations (e.g., Wicker 1969; Milgram 1975; Mischel 1968; see also Baumeister
et al. 2007).
Second, our allocators in Experiment 1 had a stake in the outcome (i.e., they
were distributing money between themselves and another player), whereas Scott
and Bornstein’s participants were distributing goods between two other parties.
Perhaps equality is more salient when there is self-interest because of motivations
related to self-presentation, such as a desire not to appear selfish. Even if this is the
case, however, it cannot explain the high rate of egalitarianism observed in Experi-
ment 2, where allocators were not also recipients themselves.
In designing the present studies, we deliberately chose to examine allocation
behavior for resources that could be characterized as both goods (money, in Ex-
periment 1) and bads (work, in Experiment 2). Importantly, we observed a high
rate of egalitarianism for both kinds of resources. Although egalitarian beliefs did
not predict allocation behavior, they were correlated with empathy and commu-
nal/exchange orientation. Thus, egalitarianism might be part of a broader construct
drawing on support for others, especially those in need; importantly, however, it is
distinct from other attitudes toward the needy, such as humanitarianism (Feldman
and Steenbergen 2001).
A secondary finding was that it proved difficult to prime either power or prin-
ciples of justice. One possible explanation for the power finding is that an allocator
role is associated with feeling powerful, regardless of situational primes. For ex-
ample, in Experiment 2, participants had legitimate and punishment bases of power,
regardless of the situational prime. They were placed into a legitimate high-power
position as the allocator, and they had the ability to punish the recipients by assign-
ing them tasks that took more time. When in this position, the situational power
prime (reading powerful or powerless words) had very little influence on partici-
pants. However, it does appear that characteristics of the actual allocator position
do have a meaningful impact on allocators’ feelings of subjective power. Although
everyone was assigned to an allocator role in Experiment 1, participants’ subjective
experience of power depended on the actual power bestowed by their allocator role,
with participants reporting the most power in the DG, a moderate level of power in
the modified UG, and the least power in the UG.
Overcoming the Egalitarian Norm In light of the present findings demonstrating

a strong egalitarian norm, one might reasonably ask how it could be overcome.
Before addressing possible strategies for overcoming the egalitarian norm, we first
need to address whether, as a matter of public policy, it would be desirable to do so.
Although it might seem desirable from a Western, capitalist perspective, ideals of
distributive fairness vary widely across cultures, with some cultures considerably
more egalitarian than others (e.g., Alwin et al. 1995; Miller and Bersoff 1992;
Murphy-Berman and Berman 2002).
There are also differences in egalitarianism within societies (Feldman and Steen-
bergen 2001; Scott et al. 2001). And as the chapter by Scott (this volume) makes
clear, the extent of egalitarian behavior varies as a function of the type of task and
how equality is defined. Moreover, situational cues can prime people to be more
egalitarian in certain circumstances (e.g., Biernat et al. 1996). For example, Butz
et al. (2007) found that merely exposing participants to a picture of an American
flag activated egalitarian concepts. If it is possible to make people feel more egali-
tarian, then it should also be possible to make them feel less egalitarian. Activating
a competing justice principle, such as merit, should accomplish that; although the
merit prime in Experiment 2 was ineffective, it seems reasonable that a stronger
merit priming manipulation would also make people less egalitarian.
Conclusions When it comes to the allocation of resources, “Is it fair?” represents an

important and seemingly simple question. According to distributive justice theory
and research, however, the answer is multifaceted. Is the allocation based on merit,
equality, need, or another principle? Is the resource a good (e.g., money, medication)
or a bad (e.g., economic sanctions, time on a task)? Who is allocating and who
is receiving the resource? Such situational factors as power, in-group versus out-
group distinctions, mood, and threat play a role, whereas individual differences in
meritocracy, egalitarianism, collectivism, or empathy are also important. Despite
the complexity of determining whether the allocation of assets is fair, the findings
from the present pair of studies suggest that people’s actual allocation behavior can
be quite straightforward. At least in the situations under investigation here, people’s
default allocation appears to be egalitarian—they tend to divvy up resources equally.
This emerges whether they are distributing goods or bads and whether the allocations
could serve self-interest or whether the recipient is particularly needy or meritorious.
Thus, instead of asking “Is it fair?” researchers should perhaps be asking “When is it
not fair?” Determining when and why people overcome the egalitarian norm in their
allocation of resources is a critical direction for future research.
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Chapter 2
Cutting Your Cake and Having It Too: Or, Is
Equality a Distributive Justice Principle?
John T. Scott
Equality has almost universally been treated as a distributive justice or allocation

principle in empirical studies of justice beliefs and behavior. Much of this empiri-
cal research has been influenced by Deutsch (1975, 1985), who argues that equal-
ity is one of the three principles of justice, along with equity and need. Researchers
in this field have often also turned to the history of philosophy in order to confirm
the pedigree of equality as a justice principle, going back at least as far as Aristo-
tle and also drawing on more contemporary philosophers such as Rawls (1971),
Miller (1999), and Dworkin (2000) to understand the role of equality in justice.
Certainly, equality is a strong norm in contemporary democratic societies such as
the USA where we imbibe the principle of the Declaration of Independence telling
us, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…,” and
where social and economic justice movements appeal to the principle of equality
when decrying the inequalities we see around us. Indeed, the norm of equality has
been progressively expanded from arguments for equality of rights to equality of
conditions (Dahl 1989). In short, equality remains the presumptive principle in
nearly all modern theories of justice, as well as a central norm in debates over
democracy, the social welfare state, and the distribution of income and other goods
(Weale 1985).
But is equality actually a distributive justice principle? Or, less strongly, to what
extent and under what conditions do individuals employ equality as a distributive
justice principle? The goal of this chapter is to raise this question and, at minimum,
to provide enough evidence to suggest that we should take the question seriously.
In order to do so, I first reexamine some representative treatments of equality in
the history of philosophy, specifically those by Aristotle, Hobbes, and Rawls. In
doing so, I make two broad claims. First, I show that equality does not in fact play
a central role in these political and moral theories, even theories such as Hobbes’
J. T. Scott ()
Department of Political Science, University of California-Davis,
683 Kerr Hall, Davis, CA 95616, USA
e-mail: jtscott@ucdavis.edu
32 J. T. Scott
where equality is asserted to be fundamental. Second, I argue that the conversion

of distributive justice claims into procedural justice claims, first seen in Hobbes but
brought to its culmination in Rawls, has the effect of privileging equality not as a
distributive justice principle, but as a privileged outcome that is the result of treating
the allocation problem as a procedural one. Or to put the second claim in particular
more pithily: In theory and practice, justice as equality means being able to cut your
cake and have it too.
With this reexamination of the role of equality in the history of philosophy in
mind, I then turn to a few representative empirical studies of justice behavior in
order to raise questions about what is actually going on when we see individuals
behave in a way that seems to accord with the theoretical expectation that they are
treating equality as a distributive justice principle and to suggest that they may not
actually be doing so. Finally, I conclude with some reflections on the implications
of this examination for the empirical study of justice beliefs and behavior and sug-
gest some potentially fruitful lines of further research.
A Brief History of Equality
“Equality” seems at first to be a straightforward and simple concept, but upon ex-
amination it turns out to be devilishly complicated. The entry on “equality” in the
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy admits this complexity from the outset: “In its
prescriptive usage, ‘equality’ is a loaded and ‘highly contested’ concept” (Gosepath
2011; quoting Dworkin 2000, p. 2). The article proceeds to disentangle the skein of
equality, differentiating among formal equality, proportional equality, moral equal-
ity, and presumptive equality and then weaves these different strands through a
survey of the role of equality of distribution. Working both within and against the
highly influential framework of Rawls’ Theory of Justice (1971; see Daniels 2003),
numerous philosophers have tried to articulate precisely what we should equal-
ize, whether equality of resources or “basic goods” (Rawls 1971; Dworkin 1981),
equality of opportunity or access to advantage (Cohen 1989; Arneson 1990; Roemer
1998), moral capabilities (Williams 1973), or equality of capabilities more tangibly
considered (Sen 1992; Nussbaum 1992, 2000). This complexity of “equality” has
led some scholars either to worry about the confusion they believe reigns in people’s
minds over what they hold to be equal or to accept this confusion as complexity. For
example, Hochshild (1981) concludes that Americans confusedly entertain different
senses of the term simultaneously. In turn, Rae (1981) decides to speak in the plural
rather than the singular, of “equalities” rather than “equality,” whereas Sen (1992)
begins his work on welfare economics by first asking “Equality of What?”
Part of this complexity, if not confusion, concerning equality is due to the poly-
valent character of the word “equality” itself. This polyvalence can be seen clearly
in the Greek term isos, which means both “fair” and “equal.” As Aristotle writes in
his examination of distributive justice: “If, then, the unjust is unequal [or: unfair],
the just is equal [or: fair], which is in fact what is held to be the case by everyone,
2 Cutting Your Cake and Having It Too: Or, Is Equality … 33
even without argument” ( Nicomachean Ethics 5.3.1131a (2011, p. 95)).1 I will turn
to Aristotle’s argument momentarily, but for now it suffices to note that “equal-
ity” can mean, at minimum, either absolute or numerical equality or proportional
equality. That is, two things can be absolutely equal, as Smith and Jones receiving
US$ 100 each in a given distribution, or proportionately equal, as Smith receiving
US$ 200 and Jones receiving US$ 100 where Smith has for example done twice as
much work as Jones or owns twice as many shares in a company. This dual meaning
of isos is central to Aristotle’s theory, but whereas he offers a certain order or solu-
tion to the problem that takes advantage of the two senses, ambiguity—intentional
or unintentional—pervades both theoretical and empirical examinations of equal-
ity. This ambiguity is part of what lies behind Rae’s (1981) “equalities” and Sen’s
(1992) “Equality of What?” It is likewise seen in the empirical literature, some-
times directly inspired by Aristotle (e.g., Mellers 1982), where the term “equality,”
meaning the principle that outcomes should be proportional to inputs (as reward
proportionate to contribution), is used instead of the potential synonyms “desert” or
“merit” (e.g., Adams 1965; Deutsch 1975, 1985; Messick and Cook 1983). Since
the term “equity” can also mean “equality,” the ambiguity of usage that stems in
part from the polyvalent character of the term “equality” has perhaps needlessly,
even if understandably, led to confusion.
A full analysis of the theoretical debate over the term “equality” is not my pur-
pose here. Rather, the purpose of the present analysis is to question the role of
“equality” as a distributive justice principle in both the history of philosophy and
in empirical justice research, so I will restrict my analysis to “equality” as absolute
or numerical equality: 1 = 1, 100 = 100, etc. Indeed, one result of this analysis will
be to show how over the course of the history of philosophy the proportional sense
of equality (or equity or desert) is quietly subsumed within the absolute sense of
equality. By beginning with the absolute sense of the term, we will be in a position
to witness this transformation.
Aristotle on Inequality
The title of this section is not “Aristotle on Equality” for a simple reason: Aristotle
in many respects begins from the assumption or observation of inequality rather
than equality among human beings. In this regard, Aristotle might even be said to
be representative of premodern thought in general. This characterization of Aristo-
tle is too strong, and I will point out places where he is arguably more egalitarian
than we might at first think, but it is not entirely misleading. Further, since Hobbes
later characterizes his predecessor as privileging inequality, this characterization of
Aristotle is useful for analyzing how Hobbes and other modern philosophers have
transformed the relationship between equality and distributive justice, in large part
in direct opposition to Aristotle.
Subsequent references to Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics will include only the standard refer-
1
ents to book, chapter, and Bekker page number.

34 J. T. Scott
The pervasiveness of inequality in Aristotle’s philosophy is signaled from the

outset of his Politics, where he outlines the various “partnerships” ( koinônia) that
make up the city or polis: man and woman, parent and child, and, most tellingly,
master and slave. Aristotle articulates a central principle of his approach to human
things when he explains with reference to master and slave that there is “naturally
ruling and ruled,” for “that which can foresee with the mind is the naturally ruling
and naturally mastering element, while that which can do these things with the body
is the naturally ruled and slave” ( Politics I.2.1252a (1984, p. 36)).2 This argument is
part of Aristotle’s more general position concerning natural rule, which is ultimately
derived from his teleological theory of nature: “For whatever is constituted out of
a number of things—whether continuous”—e.g., soul and body in an individual
human being—“or discrete”—e.g., master and slave—“and becomes a single com-
mon thing, always displays a ruling and ruled element” (1.5.1254a). In his ensuing
discussion of natural slavery, Aristotle defines the natural slave in the following
terms: “one who does not belong to himself by nature but is another’s, though a hu-
man being, is by nature a slave” (1.4.1254a). Likewise, he concludes: “Accordingly,
those who are as different from other men as the soul from the body or man from
beast—and they are in this state if their work is the use of the body, and if this is the
best that can come from them—are slaves by nature” (1.5.1254b).
Note that Aristotle’s definition of the natural slave is not a statement about the
actual existence of such beings, but a definition of what such a being would be.
While Aristotle does conclude that some human beings meet his definition (how
many is not clear), he wields his argument concerning natural slavery against the
existing practice of slavery, arguing explicitly that someone being a slave by law,
whether through purchase or conquest in war, for example, does not mean that they
are slaves by nature (1.6.1255a–b). In this light, Aristotle’s remark at the outset
of his discussion of natural slavery is telling: “Let us speak first about master and
slave, so that we may see … whether we cannot acquire something in the way of
knowledge about these things that is better than current conceptions” (1.3.1253b).
The interpretation of Aristotle’s position on natural slavery, and on similar subjects
such as women, is hotly contested (see, e.g., Dobbs 1994). Nonetheless, even if the
ultimate thrust of his argument concerning slavery is more egalitarian than it may
at first appear, his fundamental position on relations of authority between natural
unequals remains intact.
In what respects equality and inequality among humans are relevant for politics
and morals becomes thematic in Aristotle’s investigation of the various political
regimes. Aristotle outlines the six forms of regime, or the authoritative form of the
city that determines who is allowed to participate in the offices of the city or who
is a citizen, in terms of the number of citizens (one, few, many) and whether the
aim of the regime is “correct”—that is, oriented toward the common advantage—or
2
Subsequent references to Aristotle’s Politics will include only the standard referents to book,
chapter, and Bekker page number. I have also eliminated the brackets included by the translator to
indicate words or phrases which he interpolates to make Aristotle’s highly compressed prose make
sense in translation.
“deviant.” The three deviant forms are tyranny, oligarchy (essentially, the rule of
the rich), and democracy (essentially, the rule of the poor). The three correct forms
are kingship, aristocracy, and what he terms “polity,” which is the rule of the many
in a proper way and in practice a mixed regime of democracy, oligarchy, and aris-
tocracy (3.7–8.1279a–1280a). Each of these regimes, he argues, espouses a certain
understanding of justice in terms of competing notions of equality and inequality.
In order to examine the different claims by these contenders for rule, and espe-
cially oligarchs and democrats, since they are the two regimes he claims are empiri-
cally pervasive, Aristotle frames and then examines their claims in terms of their
arguments concerning justice.
It is necessary first to grasp what they speak of as the defining principles of oligarchy and
democracy and what justice is from both oligarchic and democratic points of view. For all
fasten on a certain sort of justice, but proceed only to a certain point, and do not speak of
the whole of justice in its authoritative sense. For example, justice is held to be equality,
and it is, but for equals and not for all; and inequality is held to be just and is indeed, but
for unequals and not for all; but they disregard this element of persons and judge badly. The
cause of this is that the judgment concerns them selves, and most people are bad judges
concerning their own things (3.9.1280a).
In other words, both oligarchs and democrats are “partial” in the dispute, both in
the sense of having a “partial” or interested point of view and in the sense of see-
ing only a part, and not the whole, of justice. In this context Aristotle references his
treatise on ethics, to which I shall turn momentarily, but for the present he lets his
claimants make their cases. “For the ones, if they are unequal in a certain thing, such
as goods, suppose they are unequal generally, while the others suppose that if they
are equal in a certain thing, such as freedom, they are equal generally. But of the
most authoritative consideration they say nothing” (3.9.1280a). Aristotle explicitly
rejects the oligarchs’ claim, saying that their argument that their unequal possession
of goods entitles them to an unequal share in rule would be correct if they were a
joint business venture whose end was to make money, but it is incorrect because
they mistake the end of the city (3.9.1280a). The end of the city is not “to live” but
rather to “live well,” meaning the full completion and exercise of human capaci-
ties, or “virtues,” and thus happiness (3.9.1280b–1281a; see 1.2.1252b). Goods are
necessary for “living,” but they are only the necessary condition, if that, for the
ultimate end of “living well.” Aristotle does not explicitly reject the democrats’
claim that their equal freedom entitles them to an equal share in ruling, but he would
undoubtedly offer a similar argument about freedom being necessary but not suf-
ficient for the true end of the political partnership. It is the aristocrats—aristocrats
properly speaking, that is the virtuous—who in fact have the best claim to rule, but
these just claimants do not tend to press their case (see 3.13.1283a). The theoretical
argument for understanding justice in relation to political rule is clear: Those who
are unequally suited to attaining the true end of the city, “living well,” have the most
just claim to rule. The case regarding merit that Aristotle raises in this context as
being supposedly analogous is telling: “If someone were preeminent in flute play-
ing … the outstanding flutes … ought to be given to him” (3.12.1282b–1283a).
Thus, for Aristotle the just distribution of political power might in principle be quite
36 J. T. Scott
unequal. Even if this conclusion is warranted in principle or in theory, however, it

is superseded for Aristotle by the practical consideration that all but a vanishingly
small number of cities contain elements (virtuous, rich, free) that have claims to
participating in rule that are incommensurate in nature and are impractical or unsafe
simply to ignore (3.12.1283a; 3.13.1283b). In sum, once again even if Aristotle’s
ultimate practical solution is to give equality its due in politics by advancing the
democrats’ case or by arranging for their participation in rule, the ultimate thrust of
his argument concerning justice in political life is generally inegalitarian.
This brief examination of Aristotle’s treatment in the political realm of justice
understood as equality and inequality is useful for understanding how his concep-
tion of justice cashes out, and will also be useful when we turn to Hobbes in order
to see how he challenges Aristotle’s argument on behalf of equality. But it is Aristo-
tle’s systematic analysis of justice in the Nicomachean Ethics that is most important
for understanding how he conceives the relationship between justice and equality.
Aristotle’s examination of the virtue of justice in the Ethics is rich and complex; and
although the present analysis of how he conceives of justice in relation to equality
will necessarily not do justice to his argument, it is still worth sketching out briefly.
At the outset of his discussion of justice in Book 5 of the Ethics, Aristotle re-
marks on the complexity of the concept, but he focuses immediately on the no-
tion that justice is said to be a kind of equality and injustice a kind of inequality
(5.1.1129a–b). Once again, in order to comprehend his point fully, we must recall
that the word being translated as “equal” in this context is isos, which also means
“fair.” Since Aristotle casts his analysis of justice in mathematical terms, treating
justice as a kind of middle term in a geometric proportion in the case of distributive
justice or in an arithmetic proportion in the case of corrective justice, however, the
sense of isos as “equal” is central to his discussion.
Distributive justice is Aristotle’s first order of business, in large part because it is
for him the most important consideration for politics and morals, and once again it
is inequality, not equality, that is paramount. Aristotle describes distributive justice
as a kind of geometric proportion between at least two things (people, goods, people
and goods, etc.). In simplified form:
c d
A : B :: c : d or :
A B
Where A and B are persons, and c and d some sort of good. In this case, for ex-
ample, if A = 2B , then c = 2d , or A receives twice as much as B of the relevant
good. Alternatively, if A = B, then c = d , or A and B receive an equal amount of the
relevant good (3.3.1131a–b). The important thing to note with regard to Aristotle’s
discussion of distributive justice here is that equality is only a special case within a
proportion that is otherwise not assumed to be equal. In other words, an equal dis-
tribution is just only in the case where the persons happen to be equal in the relevant
respect. Equality understood as absolute or numerical equality has no privileged
position in Aristotle’s treatment of distributive justice, and in fact his treatment of
distributive justice as a kind of proportion appears to assume inequality.
Equality does, however, play a central role in Aristotle’s treatment of what he

terms “corrective” justice. Corrective justice is either voluntary, as in commercial
transactions or exchanges, or involuntary, as in punishing crimes. Rather than being
akin to a geometric proportion, however, corrective justice is akin to an arithmetic
proportion, which is concerned with absolute rather than proportional equality or
differences in equality. “The just in transactions is a certain equality, and the unjust,
a certain inequality, yet not in accord with the proportion just indicated but in ac-
cordance with an arithmetic one. For it makes no difference at all whether a decent
person robs a base one, or a base person a decent one, or if a decent or a base person
commits adultery. Rather, the law looks only at the difference that stems from the
harm done, and it treats people as equals: if the one person acts unjustly, the other
suffers injustice; and if the one did harm, the other was harmed” (5.4.1131b–1132a).
Appealing to the sense of “unjust” as meaning “unequal,” Aristotle treats correc-
tive justice as one person creating an inequality through committing a wrong, for
example when a thief robs someone of a certain amount of money so that the victim
suffers a loss and the thief has an equivalent gain. This relationship might be repre-
sented in the following way:
c d e
c d e f
In this example, A and B are persons and the lines represent the amount of some
good they each have after B has stolen a portion of A’s amount of the good repre-
sented by the length of the line from e to f. B’s theft has created an inequality where
there was previously equality. The “just” thing to do in this case, then, would be
to restore equality by restoring the portion of B’s line from e to f to A. As Aristotle
states, the law in this case is indifferent to any other attributes of the persons in-
volved in the “transaction,” A and B, and treats them both as equals. Aristotle exam-
ines “voluntary” exchanges such as commercial transactions in a similar way in this
context, but the important point about this examination for the present analysis is
that he similarly treats the two parties to the exchange as equals. Although Aristotle
does not develop a concept of procedural justice in this context, one might rearticu-
late his theory of “corrective” justice in this manner, with the key point being that
procedural justice likewise treats the parties to a dispute or a transaction as equals.
Recasting his theory in this way helps prepare us for grasping the transformation of
distributive and procedural justice that will happen in Hobbes’ hands.
38 J. T. Scott
Hobbes on Equality
If Aristotle’s philosophy is premised on inequality, then Hobbes is perhaps the first

philosopher to premise his thought on equality. Or so it seems at first. Closer ex-
amination of Hobbes’ position on equality and justice reveals that his argument for
equality is deceptive and is instead advanced for political purposes rather than as a
substantive argument, or at least not as the substantive argument he initially seems
to advance. Likewise, and related, his argument concerning distributive justice is
meant to evacuate inegalitarian claims concerning justice, such as those found in
Aristotle, of any meaning or force, again for political purposes. Hobbes instead
converts essentially controversial and irresolvable questions of distributive justice
into issues of procedural justice that take individuals as equal and are resolvable as
matters of simple exchange or sovereign will or law.
Hobbes begins his famous chapter in Leviathan (1651) “Of the Natural Condi-
tion of Mankind” with a seemingly straightforward argument for the natural equal-
ity of human beings: “Nature hath made men so equal…” (1994 [1651], p. 74). The
consequences of this argument are monumental: our natural equality contributes
to making the state of nature a state of “war of all against all;” every human has
an equal and unlimited right to self-preservation, and therefore the way out of the
state of nature is a contract of everyone with everyone to relinquish those rights and
obey a sovereign that has authority to make laws which everyone is obliged to obey.
Many of these arguments are directed at Aristotle, for Hobbes denies that any par-
ticular human being has a natural authority or just claim to rule over others due to
virtue or some other quality. He likewise asserts that “there is no such Finis ultimus
(utmost aim) nor Summum Bonum (greatest good) as is spoken of in the books of
the old moral philosophers” (1994 [1651], p. 57), Aristotle foremost among them.
He thereby challenges Aristotle’s teleological theory of nature, human nature, and
politics, thus robbing anyone of the claim that they merit being rulers because they
are most able to achieve the proper end of the political association, for there is no
such end. Finally, and to similar effect, Hobbes denies Aristotle’s claim that humans
are by nature political animals (1994 [1651], p. 108). All this is true about Hobbes,
but none of it is ultimately premised on an argument for human equality. Indeed,
Hobbes’ actual argument concerning human equality never establishes this equality,
at least in the way it first seems. A closer examination of his argument is therefore
necessary.
Hobbes’ argument for equality comprises the first two paragraphs of the chapter
“Of the Natural Condition of Mankind.” He begins:
Nature hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind as that, though there be
found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind than another, yet
when all is reckoned together the difference between man and man is not so considerable as
that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend
as well as he. For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the
strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others that are in the same
danger with himself. (1994 [1651], p. 74)
Note first that Hobbes actually admits inequality of both body and mind: “though
there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind
than another….” His point, then, is not that humans are equal, but that the inequal-
ity among them does not matter decisively. No one is so unequal as to be able to
“claim” anything for himself that everyone else might not claim. Or, to put this in
the strongest possible terms, the terms Hobbes later uses in describing the state
of nature: “in such a condition every man has a right to everything, even to one
another’s body” (1994 [1651], p. 80). In other words, every human has an equal
natural right to everything, and therefore no one individual has an exclusive right
or “claim” to anything—even himself! Hobbes thereby evacuates natural right or
justice of any specific claim to anything. Hobbes’ argument concerning our equal-
ity in terms of our bodies is likewise not quite what it at first seems. For while
admitting inequalities in bodily strength, his point is that despite these inequalities
everyone is equally physically vulnerable, that is, vulnerable to being killed. If fear
of violent death is the greatest fear, according to Hobbes, then everyone ought to be
equally afraid. Anyone who is not so afraid, for example because he is so prideful
as to consider himself as so unequal in body or mind so as not to be vulnerable, is
deceiving himself.
Having established our equal claim to everything and our equal physical vulner-
ability, Hobbes turns in the second paragraph to the qualities of mind:
And as to the faculties of the mind– setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and espe-
cially … science (which very few have, and but in few things), as being not a native fac-
ulty (born with us), nor attained (as prudence) while we look after somewhat else– I find
yet a greater equality amongst men than that of strength. For prudence is but experience,
which equal time equally bestows on all men in those things they equally apply themselves
unto…. (1994 [1651], pp. 74–75)
Note again that Hobbes does not argue that humans are in fact equal in mind, for
at least some people acquire science and therefore potentially much great power
of mind. Science is not a “native faculty,” however, and Hobbes seems to imply
that naturally all humans’ mental faculties are equal before any acquisitions. How-
ever, in his discussion of intellectual virtues a few chapters earlier, he notes that
people’s minds differ in their quickness or “celerity” for various reasons (1994
[1651], p. 38). All humans are therefore not as equal in mental faculties as Hobbes
seems at first to argue. His position on prudence, which seems to be directed at
Aristotle in particular, is curious, for it seems an odd claim that prudence is simply
experience, “which equal time equally bestows on all men in those things they
equally apply themselves unto.” His claim would make sense, however, if we take
him quite literally as saying that individuals would in principle be equally prudent
if they have equal “time” or experiences and especially if they equally apply their
minds to matters requiring prudence. This position would be reconcilable with our
actual experience that individuals are not in fact equally prudent. However this
may be, the continuation of this passage is quite revealing about Hobbes’ actual
argument:
40 J. T. Scott
… That which may make such equality incredible is but a vain conceit of one’s own wis-
dom, which almost all men think they have in a greater degree than the vulgar, that is, than
all men but themselves…. For they see their own wit at hand, and other men’s at a distance.
But this proveth rather that men are in that point equal, than unequal. For there is not ordi-
narily a greater sign of the equal distribution of anything than that every man is contented
with his share. (1994 [1651], p. 75)
Rather than this proving that humans are in fact equal instead of unequal in terms of
mind, Hobbes has in fact established that they are equally vain.3
In short, in his argument for equality, Hobbes has actually established that hu-
mans are equal in having an equal claim to everything, being equally vulnerable to
death, and being equally vain. It is therefore no coincidence that, after this argu-
ment, Hobbes identifies the three principal causes that make the state of nature
a state of war of all against all: competition, diffidence, and glory (1994 [1651],
p. 75). These three causes of quarrel directly parallel the three respects in which hu-
mans are actually equal: There is competition in principle among humans because
they all have an equal claim to everything; humans are “diffident” (that is, wary
such that they anticipate threats and strike first) because they are equally vulnerable;
and they are equally glory-seeking or prideful because they are equally vain about
their own capacities. All of this is not to deny that Hobbes’ actual arguments con-
cerning human equality have no bearing, for they certainly do. They have a crucial
bearing in at least two ways. First, the natural right of everyone to everything carries
with it the proposition that no one has any natural authority over anyone else, which
means that authority comes from contract, not nature, which is crucial to Hobbes’
theory (and opposed to Aristotle’s theory). Second, equal vulnerability and equal
vanity are aspects of human nature that Hobbes believes we must acknowledge
in order to be amenable to his solution of the social contract. The present point is
that Hobbes does not actually argue what he at first seems to with regard to human
equality, namely, that we are equal in some substantial way.
Why, then, does Hobbes offer a misleading argument about human equality? His
purpose in doing so is one of necessity: in order to achieve the political outcome
he believes necessary for the relief of man’s natural estate. This purpose becomes
clear two chapters later in his discussion of the laws of nature. “The question ‘who
is the better man?’ has no place in the condition of mere nature, where (as has been
shewn before) all men are equal,” Hobbes begins his discussion of the sixth law of
nature, against pride. He then reveals that it is Aristotle he is opposing: “I know that
Aristotle (in the first book of his Politics, for a foundation of his doctrine) maketh
men by nature, some more worthy to command (meaning the wiser sort, such as he
thought himself to be for his philosophy), others to serve …, as if master and ser-
vant were not introduced by consent of men, but by difference of wit; which is not
only against reason, but also against experience.” Hobbes is referring to Aristotle’s
argument concerning natural slavery, and putting aside the ad hominem attack and
unfair characterization of Aristotle’s argument (whether he is aware that it is unfair
Descartes makes the same misleading argument at the beginning of Part One of his Discourse
3
on Method.
is unclear), Hobbes’ main point is clear: Humans are naturally equal, not unequal.
Nonetheless, Hobbes’ phrasing of the conclusion of the argument seems to under-
mine the supposed premise: “If nature therefore have made men equal, that equality
is to be acknowledged; or if nature have made men unequal, yet because men that
think themselves equal will not enter into conditions of peace but upon equal terms,
such equality must be admitted” (1994 [1651], pp. 96–97; emphasis added). In other
words, if by nature humans are in fact unequal rather than equal, and we have good
reason to believe they are, we should nonetheless “admit” such equality—that is,
pretend that we are equal—in order to enter into the social contract that will get us
out of the state of nature. Differently put, Hobbes must deny claims about human
inequality and assert claims about human equality, even against the facts, because
his political solution is threatened by those individuals who refuse to acknowledge
their equality.
With Hobbes’ deceptive argument concerning equality in mind, then, we can
now turn to how he re-characterizes distributive justice. His examination of dis-
tributive justice also comes in his discussion of the laws of nature, specifically in
his treatment of the third law of nature dictating equity:
Justice of actions is by writers divided into commutative and distributive; and the former
they say consisteth in proportion arithmetical; the latter in proportion geometrical. Com-
mutative, therefore, they place in the equality of value of things contracted for; and distribu-
tive, in the distribution of equal benefit to men of equal merit (as if it were injustice to sell
dearer than we buy, or to give more to a man than he merits)…. (1994 [1651], p. 94)
So far, Hobbes offers a brief and reasonable summary of Aristotle’s understanding

of distributive and commutative justice, or what was referred to above as “correc-
tive” justice, but at least two things are already noteworthy. First, in characterizing
distributive justice, Hobbes emphasizes equality (“equal benefit to men of equal
merit”) rather than, as in Aristotle, inequality. Second, his concluding parenthetical
statement has a deflationary effect that will take over his discussion, for he snidely
wonders why anyone would say it is unjust to offer too much for something in an
exchange (the assumption being that offering too little is not an unjust offer but
rather an offer that will not be accepted) and, more importantly, why anyone would
say that it is unjust to give someone more than he merits (begging the question of
whether it is unjust to offer someone less than he merits). The continuation makes it
clearer where Hobbes is going with this:
The value of all things contracted for is measured by the appetite of the contractors; and
therefore the just value is that which they be contented to give. And merit (besides that
which is by covenant, where the performance on one part meriteth the performance of the
other part, and falls under justice commutative, not distributive) is not due by justice, but is
rewarded of grace only. (1994 [1651], p. 94)
Hobbes thus transforms both distributive and commutative justice as they are un-
derstood by Aristotle. As for commutative justice, Hobbes transforms it into a mat-
ter of simple exchange, or a part of a much larger whole in Aristotle’s discussion,
and argues that such exchanges are not a matter of justice at all, but rather of the
appetite of the contractors. The transformation of distributive justice is even more
42 J. T. Scott
thoroughgoing. He first divides “merit” in two: that which is by covenant or con-

tract and that which is done by “grace,” namely the “grace” or free will of the sover-
eign. As for that part by covenant or contract, Hobbes argues that what is at issue is
performance of contract by the parties, and that is equivalent to a kind of exchange
and therefore not a matter of distributive justice at all. As for what remains of dis-
tributive justice, Hobbes argues that it is not a matter of justice either, but rather of
the sovereign’s unconstrained will or “grace.” He completes his argument against
Aristotle’s distinction between distributive and commutative justice in this way:
And therefore this distinction, in the sense wherein it used to be expounded is not right. To
speak properly, commutative justice is the justice of a contractor, that is, a performance of
covenant (in buying and selling, hiring and letting to hire…). And distributive justice is the
justice of an arbitrator, that is to say, the act of defining what is just. (1994 [1651], p. 95)
What remains of distributive justice, then, is what Hobbes terms “the justice of an
arbitrator,” and principally “defining what is just,” that is, making law. Since laws
must be general in form and application for all citizens, according to Hobbes, dis-
tributive justice is simply what is properly speaking “equity,” which dictates that
individuals should be treated as equals.
In short, Hobbes has eliminated distributive justice as a cause for contention in
politics, whereas it is perhaps the cause of conflict in politics for Aristotle. He has
done so by effectively turning matters of distributive justice into matters of “cor-
rective” justice, to use Aristotle’s terminology, where the parties to an exchange or
dispute are considered as equals. Differently put, Hobbes has converted matters of
distributive justice, in which inequality is a persistent issue, into matters of proce-
dural justice, where equality is presumed. Hobbes has effectively tried to sidestep
the issues of inequality and distributive justice. Out of the hat of inequality, Hobbes
has managed to pull the rabbit of equality.
Rawls on Pure Procedural Justice
Hobbes’ magic trick is successful because he misdirects his audience through a

misleading argument about human equality, but his act is completed without the
devilish glee by his successors within the liberal tradition of political and moral
philosophy. In order to see something like the dénouement of this story, a brief
examination of John Rawls will suffice. Rawls’ Theory of Justice, first published
in 1971, has proved to be the most influential work of political philosophy in the
twentieth century and so far in the twenty-first century, at least in Anglo-American
analytic philosophy, and so his theory may be taken for the present purposes as rep-
resentative. In addition, Rawls is a useful place to conclude this examination of the
relationship between distributive justice and equality because a number of scholars
have attempted to test his propositions empirically (see Frohlich and Oppenheimer
1992; Mitchell et al. 1993; Michelbach et al. 2003). Rather than attempting to do
justice to Rawls’ theory of justice, for the present purposes I want to focus only
on certain aspects of how it may be seen as the culmination of Hobbes’ elision of
inegalitarian claims with regard to distributive justice and his effective incorpora-
tion of distributive justice into procedural justice.
The basic outlines of Rawls’ theory of justice are well-known. Rawls sees his
theory as a continuation of the social contract tradition that includes Locke, Rous-
seau, and Kant (Rawls 1971, p. 11), and we might add Hobbes (even if Rawls says
doing so “raises special problems” (Rawls 1971, p. 11 n.)). He terms his approach
“justice as fairness, a theory of justice that generalizes and carries to a higher level
of abstraction the traditional conception of the social contract.” He explains: “The
compact of society is replaced by an initial situation that incorporates certain pro-
cedural constraints on arguments designed to lead to an original agreement on prin-
ciples of justice” (Rawls 1971, p. 3). Note the “procedural constraints,” a point to
which I shall return. This initial situation Rawls terms “the original position,” or
“the original position of equality,” a hypothetical situation “characterized so as to
lead to a certain conception of justice” (Rawls 1971, p. 12). In the “original posi-
tion,” we are to imagine ourselves as equal individuals deciding on the principles
of justice by which we will govern ourselves in society, but without any substantive
knowledge about our class position or social status, our natural assets and abili-
ties, or even our conception of the good. Rawls terms this procedure of choosing
principles of justice behind “a veil of ignorance” such that “no one is advantaged
or disadvantaged in the choice of principles by the outcome of natural chance or
the contingency of social circumstances (Rawls 1971). This last statement is later
expanded by Rawls with an argument that the natural or other inequalities we pos-
sess are “arbitrary from a moral point of view,” so that the unequal consequences of
those unequal circumstances and abilities are undeserved or unmerited (Rawls 1971,
p. 15). Finally, Rawls argues that these equal individuals in the “original position”
will choose a set of lexically ordered principles of justice: First, equality of right to
the most extensive basic liberty consistent with a similar liberty for others; second,
an arrangement of any social and economic inequalities that may result from this
liberty such that they are to the advantage of the “least well off,” or what Rawls
terms the “difference principle”; third, that positions and office are open to all, or
the principle of “fair equality of opportunity” (Rawls 1971, p. 60). Rawls expands
on all of these claims at length, both within the Theory of Justice and in his later
works (see Rawls 1993, 1999, 2001), and there is a vast scholarly literature debat-
ing, criticizing, and defending all of these claims and their implications, but this
summary will suffice for the present purposes.
Perhaps most noteworthy about Rawls’ strategy for the present purposes is the
fact that the whole set-up of the “original position” and the “veil of ignorance” is
a procedural method that presumes equality of individuals. Let us begin with the
presumption of equality. Rawls later defends his initial assumption of equality as
follows: “It seems reasonable to suppose that the parties in the original position are
equal. That is, all have the same rights in the procedure for choosing principles;
each can make proposals, submit reasons for their acceptance, and so on. Obvi-
ously, the purpose of these conditions is to represent equality between human be-
ings as moral persons, as creatures having a conception of their good and capable
of a sense of justice” (1971, p. 19). This formal equality of individuals says nothing
44 J. T. Scott
about actual inequalities among them, whether natural or acquired. As for those,
as noted, Rawls argues that such inequalities and their results are “arbitrary from
a moral point of view.” All of these qualities are, Rawls contends, the result of a
“natural lottery” that has no moral bearing (Rawls 1971, pp. 73–74). Rawls thus ad-
mits inequalities among humans, but denies that they have a bearing for morality or
justice; he sweeps aside Aristotle’s understanding of distributive justice. The results
of these unequal qualities do, however, have a bearing for society as a whole, ac-
cording to Rawls. The outcomes of these unequal attributes, even the extra earnings
of those who work harder (as the desire and willingness to work harder is also, ac-
cording to Rawls, the result of a natural lottery), are allowable only insofar as they
benefit the “least advantaged” members of society. The results of unequal attributes
are a matter of efficiency, not justice. Like Hobbes, Rawls aims to make inequality
irrelevant as a moral claim within distributive justice and instead posits equality as
the presumptive fact about human beings, although he does so with less finesse and
seemingly with less appreciation for the alternative.
With Rawls’ position on equality in mind, we can turn to the procedural charac-
ter of his enterprise. The thrust of his strategy perhaps comes to light most clearly
within his discussion of the last principle of justice that he argues will be adopted
behind the “veil of ignorance,” fair equality of opportunity. In his discussion of
fair equality of opportunity, Rawls argues that the theory of justice as fairness sug-
gests “the idea of treating the question of distributive shares as a matter of pure
procedural justice” (1971, pp. 84–85). Rawls explains what he means by “pure
procedural justice” by contrasting it to “perfect and imperfect procedural justice.”
“Perfect procedural justice” is where the procedure adopted for distribution directly
implies a specific resulting distribution, or, more accurately, where there is a result
that is pre-determined to be fair and the procedure is chosen accordingly. The clas-
sic example of “perfect procedural justice” is the division of a piece of cake: One
person cuts and the other person chooses, with the presumptively just result being
an equal division. “Imperfect procedural justice” is where a procedure is adopted
beforehand without a determinant resulting distribution, such as in a criminal trial,
where the defendant may or may not be justly condemned or acquitted. By contrast
with these two other forms of procedural justice, “pure procedural justice” is where
there is no pre-determined resulting distribution but where whatever distribution
that results is regarded as being just or fair because it is a result of the procedure.
Rawls adduces gambling as an example: As long as the procedures for the game are
followed the results are regarded as just or fair, regardless of the outcome (Rawls
1971, pp. 85–86).
Rawls claims that his principle of fair equality of opportunity, and perhaps his
entire approach to distributive justice, is akin to “pure procedural justice.” If we
grant him this, then the presumption is still one of equality within a procedural treat-
ment of justice. We might nonetheless wonder whether it is not more akin in certain
crucial respects to “perfect procedural justice,” that is, like cutting a piece of cake.
By taking the hypothetical parties to the “original position” as equal and by assert-
ing that any actual inequalities among them are morally arbitrary, Rawls adopts a
procedure that in important respects privileges equality. This is arguably the case
even where he defends inequality through the “difference principle,” though with
regard to its contribution to efficiency and not justice itself. In this regard, when dis-
cussing the difference principle he imagines a situation where all primary goods are
equally distributed and states, “This state of affairs provides a benchmark for judg-
ing improvements” (1971, p. 62). Rawls is clearly uncomfortable with inequality,
and many of his fellow philosophers have criticized him for not being egalitarian
enough, even on his own terms (especially Cohen 2001; compare Nozick 1977). In
short, one might characterize Rawls and many of his fellow contemporary liberals
of pressing the revolution in how equality and distributive justice are understood to
at least one of its logical conclusions, by wanting to cut their cake and have it too
when it comes to equality.
Equality and Distributive Justice in Empirical Studies

of Justice Behavior
As noted at the outset, equality is almost universally treated as a distributive justice

or allocation principle in empirical studies of justice behavior over the past 50 years
or so. Much of the scholarly literature within psychology and related work in politi-
cal science, sociology, and elsewhere has been influenced by the work of Deutsch
(1975, 1985). Deutsch opposed the then-dominant approach of equity theory, which
analyzed distributive justice behavior and beliefs in terms of a proportion between
inputs and outputs in an interaction (e.g., Adams 1965; Walster et al. 1973; Adams
and Freedman 1976; Messick and Cook 1983), and instead proposed that distribu-
tive attitudes and behaviors could be explained by three principal distributive jus-
tice principles: equity, equality, and need. The “pluralist” approach advocated by
Deutsch and others (e.g., Lerner 1974; Leventhal 1976; Mikula 1980; Schwinger
1980; Konow 2001) has, in its turn, largely dominated the experimental research
into distributive justice. In the thousands of studies in this area over the past 40
years since Deutsch’s initial statement of his approach, researchers have investi-
gated the role of equality in a wide range of domains or contexts (cultural, societal,
occupational, relational, etc.), in relation to procedural and corrective or retribu-
tive justice, etc. (for overviews, see Tyler et al. 1997; Miller 1999; Schwettmann
2009). Numerous nonexperimental studies such as surveys or interviews have also
been conducted that investigate people’s attitudes toward equality in relation to
their attitudes about equity or merit, need, and other issues, both within the USA
and across various countries (Hochshild 1981; Verba and Orren 1985; Kluegel and
Smith 1986; Verba et al. 1987; Kluegel et al. 1995). Numerous other empirical stud-
ies could be cited, but they all have one thing in common: They assume that equality
is a distributive justice principle.
The preceding examination of the role of equality in the history of political and
moral philosophy had as its aim to raise the question of whether equality is in fact a
distributive justice principle or, more modestly, to raise our suspicions about wheth-
er equality has the central role in distributive justice that empirical researchers and
46 J. T. Scott
others assume it does. The purpose of the present section is to reexamine some
recent experimental research with the questions raised by the preceding examina-
tion in mind, in order to propose alternative explanations of what is really going on
when we see what appears to be egalitarian behavior in distributive justice research.
This reexamination is meant to be for purposes of illustration alone, and will there-
fore be restricted to three recent studies in which the present author (and an editor of
this volume) has participated, and even then only in summary form. The assumption
here is that these studies are sufficiently representative of research more generally
that the same approach could be taken in a more comprehensive examination of the
empirical literature on distributive justice.4
The first two studies (Scott et al. 2001; Michelbach et al. 2003) to be examined
are related and build on an earlier study (Mitchell et al. 1993). Both of these studies
employ similar experimental designs in order to study distributive justice norms
concerning income distribution under conditions of impartiality. More specifically,
these studies examine how individuals use four allocation principles—equality,
merit, need, and efficiency—in making judgments of income distributions under
different conditions as well as what factors affect how individuals use these prin-
ciples. The main question at issue in these experiments for the present purpose
concerns the degree to which individuals’ relative preferences for equality and effi-
ciency (understood as the average income in the society as a whole) are mediated by
the degree to which income is believed to be merited. The main prediction of these
studies for these purposes is that individuals will be increasingly willing to trade
off equality for efficiency as the degree to which merit is said to predict income
increases. As is obvious from this summary of the goals of these experiments, we
assumed at the outset that equality is a distributive justice principle.
In both experiments, participants are given a short description of a hypothetical
society and are asked to imagine that they are outside observers giving their advice
about a set of proposals that would have differing effects on the level and distribu-
tion of income in that society. The experimental manipulations are contained in the
description of the society, with participants being assigned to one of six conditions
(3 × 2) that vary information about the relationship of income level to merit in that
society (high, medium, and low) and about the poverty level in that society (high
and low). More specifically, the relationship of income level to merit is operation-
alized as the degree to which income outcomes are said to be predicted by effort
and ability as opposed to luck, connections, and other such factors in that society:
90 % of income outcomes due to merit, 50 % due to merit, and 10 % due to merit.
After reading this description, participants then evaluate nine income distributions
that vary in terms of the overall level and distribution of income by rating them on
a scale from 0 (“very bad”) to 10 (“very good”). Each income distribution is pre-
4
On an autobiographical note, I want to add that the central question of this chapter as a whole—
whether equality is a distributive justice principle—was first raised by James Konow after I pre-
sented the research contained in the first two of these studies in an invited talk in the Department of
Political Science at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). My subsequent conversations
with James on this subject led me to write this paper, and I want to acknowledge him in this regard.
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Fig. 2.1 Income distributions for Scott et al. (2001)
sented as a bar graph that shows the average income for each income quintile along
with information about the overall average income, the ratio of the incomes of the
top and bottom quintiles (the “income inequality ratio”), and the poverty line. The
principal difference between the two experiments is that the income distributions
presented to participants differ.
In the first study (Scott et al. 2001), participants in the first experiment are pre-
sented with a randomized version of the income distributions displayed in Fig. 2.1.
(The study consisted of three related experiments, but only the first one is under
examination here.) As noted, these income distributions vary in terms of the level
and distribution of income. The level of income (or level of “efficiency”) within
each of the three columns is constant, with a mean societal income of $ 32, 000 in
the first column, $ 42, 000 in the second, and $ 55, 000 in the third. The level of
income inequality within each of the three rows is similarly constant, with income
inequality (operationalized as the ratio of the income of the highest quintile to the
lowest) varying as low in the first row (2.0), medium in the second row (3.5), and
high in the third row (6.1). These income distributions also pose participants with
decisions about trading off equality for efficiency, represented by the four “diago-
nal” tradeoffs indicated in Fig. 2.1.
48 J. T. Scott
Table 2.1 Results (mean ratings of income distributions) for Scott et al. (2001)
10% Merit Condition 50% Merit Condition 90% Merit Condition
5.94 6.87 8.29 5.68 6.93 8.47 4.95 6.22 7.54
4.60 5.37 5.94 4.71 5.53 6.63 4.44 5.51 6.61
1.43 2.43 3.14 1.90 2.97 3.15 2.43 3.62 4.27
The results of this first study (and here, for simplicity’s sake, only for the con-
dition in which “need” is not at issue because every income quintile has an in-
come level above the poverty line in all the income distributions) are displayed in
Table 2.1. Mere inspection of the mean ratings of the income distributions by in-
equality level (i.e., looking down from one row to the next) suggests that on average
participants prefer more equality to less equality. This is evident by the fact that, on
average, participants always give a higher rating to a more equal distribution when
holding efficiency constant (that is, comparing ratings within each column). This
is particularly evident in the first condition, in which the merit level is 10 % and in
which the mean ratings of the income distributions in the high equality row, rang-
ing from 5.94 to 8.29, are all higher than those in the medium equality row, ranging
from 4.60 to 5.94, which in turn are all higher than those in the low equality row,
ranging from 1.43 to 3.14.
Individual-level analysis of these ratings reveals that a strong minority (26.2 %)
of participants are strict egalitarians, meaning by this that they always prefer the
more equal income distribution to the less equal one in each of the tradeoffs with
which they are confronted in evaluating distributions where they “get” an increase
in average income or efficiency for a loss of equality, namely the four “diagonal”
equality-efficiency tradeoffs. Since only 7.7 % of participants are strict efficiency-
maximizers, meaning that they always prefer the more efficient (and less equal)
income distribution to the less efficient (and more equal) one in each of these trad-
eoffs, then the remaining 66.1 % of participants, while not strict egalitarians, display
at least some degree of preference for equality. The results in Table 2.1 also suggest
that assumptions about the degree to which income is merited do affect individu-
als’ relative preferences for equality and efficiency, with participants on average
being more willing to accept the tradeoff of equality for efficiency as merit level
increases, as predicted. Finally, analysis of participants’ behavior at the individual
level reveals that women are on average more concerned with equality than men,
and likewise for liberals in comparison to conservatives, also consistent with previ-
ous studies.
Summarizing the results of this study with regard to equality, we stated: “Equal-
ity performed as a normal good with participants overwhelmingly preferring more
equality over less while holding efficiency constant, frequently even at the cost of
a considerable loss in efficiency” (Scott et al. 2001, p. 763). In short, we seemed
warranted in our assumption that equality is indeed a distributive justice principle.
So far, so good.
30
Women Men
25
20
15
10
0
Strict Moderate Mixed Rawlsian Moderate Strict
Egalitarian Egalitarian Equality- Maximin Efficiency- Efficiency-
Efficiency Maximizer Maximizer
Fig. 2.2 Categorization of Participants’ Observed Behavior for Michelbach et al. (2003)
In the second study (Michelbach et al. 2003), we use the same experimental
design but with different income distributions, designed in part to ascertain whether
individuals would use a specifically Rawlsian maximin strategy in evaluating in-
come distributions. The results of this experiment are consistent with those of the
previous one, and for the present purposes a summary of the aggregate results in
terms of the strategies participants employed will suffice. The categorization of
participants’ observed behavior as strictly egalitarian, etc., was done in a similar
fashion as for the previous experiment, although with somewhat more fine-grained
categories and also, of course, including a Rawlsian maximin strategy. These results
are displayed in Fig. 2.2.
The results show that participants use a variety of strategies in assessing income
distribution, including a strictly egalitarian one. The results are disaggregated by
gender since we found that gender was the most important variable in explain-
ing equality-efficiency preferences, also consistent with the previous experiment.
Namely, we see a striking difference in the behavior of women and men regard-
ing their use of egalitarian and efficiency-maximizing strategies. Women are more
likely to be either strong or moderate egalitarians than males, and they are also more
likely than men to use a mixed equality-efficiency strategy, which is still a relative-
ly egalitarian strategy given the modest inequality of preferred outcomes. In turn,
men are far more likely to be moderate efficiency-maximizers and especially strong
efficiency-maximizers than women. In addition our results reveal that a substantial
number of participants (18.0 %) have behavior consistent with a distinct Rawlsian
maximin strategy, and in this case with no difference in behavior by gender.
With regard to equality in particular, we see that about 15 % of participants in the
aggregate have strictly egalitarian preferences, while another 17 % or so have moder-
ately egalitarian preferences and another 23 % or so have mixed equality-efficiency
50 J. T. Scott
preferences, meaning that over half of participants seem to give equality at least a
fair amount of weight in evaluating income distribution. Once again, summarizing
our results with regard to equality, we concluded: “We found considerable evidence
that most individuals use equality as an allocation principle, even preferring more
equal income distributions at the cost of a considerable loss in efficiency” (Michel-
bach et al. 2003, p. 535). In short, once again we seemed warranted in our assump-
tion that equality is indeed a distributive justice principle.
If our first two studies seem to exhibit a fair degree of egalitarian behavior,
and thus confirm that equality is a distributive justice principle, the third and final
study (Scott and Bornstein 2009) in this reexamination begins to raise some doubts.
Whereas our previous experiments were macro-level analyses of distributive justice
beliefs that focused on income alone, this third experiment is a micro-level study
of allocation behavior involving decisions under different allocation contexts and
qualitatively different goods. Specifically, we analyze allocation decisions across
two allocation contexts—nonemergency and emergency conditions—and with re-
gard to money, prescription medicine, and food. We theorize that distributive be-
havior would likely vary across context and good depending on how individuals
weigh distinct and competing allocation principles: merit, need, and equality. We
hypothesize that individuals would emphasize need over merit in the emergency
context, and vice versa for the nonemergency context, and that they would also
emphasize need over merit with regard to prescription medicine and food in com-
parison to money, across both allocation contexts. We had no specific expectations
with regard to their use of equality.
In this experiment, participants are asked to imagine that they are administrators
at a relief center who are to distribute various supplies. Participants are assigned
one of six experimental conditions (2 × 3) that vary both the allocation context and
the supply (good) they are to distribute: an emergency condition (a flood where the
recipients of the allocation are flood victims) and a nonemergency condition (where
the recipients are working at the center in exchange for goods) for the two alloca-
tion contexts and money, prescription medicine, and food for the different goods.
Participants then make a series of allocation decisions where they have to distribute
a given good between two individuals (say, Smith and Jones) based on two items of
information: the amount of work these individuals did that day (where they are said
to have worked equal amounts of time and are equally able to do the work) and the
amount of their (confirmed) need for the good. These different allocation decisions
involve situations where the amount of work and the amount of need are contrasted.
For example, Smith packed 90 boxes and needs 10 units of a given good, whereas
Jones packed 10 boxes and needs 90 units of the same good. We vary these contrasts
as 90 vs. 10, 75 vs. 25, and 66 vs. 34. In analyzing their behavior, we deem an allo-
cation that rewards work to be based on merit and one that rewards need to be based
on need, with mixed strategies also possible. Finally, we also include a scenario
meant to detect specifically egalitarian behavior, where the work and need were not
contrasted, so that Smith packed 75 boxes and needs 75 units of a given good and
Jones packed 25 boxes and needs 25 units of the same good. Under this scenario, if
a participant divides the good equally, 50–50, then he or she can only have done so
Fig. 2.3 Predicted probabilities for allocation behavior for Scott and Bornstein (2009)
based upon equality, whereas in the scenarios where work and good are contrasted
and decision to allocate the good 50–50 could mean that the participant is, for ex-
ample, weighing merit and need equally.
Figure 2.3 presents the results of our experiment, categorizing participants’ be-
havior (for the 75 vs. 25 contrasted scenario, using behavior in the non-contrasted
scenario to identify egalitarian behavior) across allocation contexts and goods ac-
cording to four allocation strategies: merit, need, equality, and mixed. As is evident,
our major hypotheses concerning allocation behavior are confirmed, and to a strik-
ing degree. First, participants overall clearly emphasize merit in the nonemergency
context across all goods and likewise clearly emphasize need in the emergency
(flood) context, again across all goods. Second, participants overall emphasize mer-
it more with regard to money and need more with regard to prescription medicine
and food, across both allocation contexts, although with proportionately less em-
phasis on need in the nonemergency context and proportionately less emphasis on
merit in the emergency (flood) context. But what about equality? We observe only
about 8–12 % of participants exhibiting specifically egalitarian behavior for either
money or prescription medicine, across both allocation contexts, and somewhat
higher levels of egalitarian behavior for food, or on average about 17 % of partici-
pants in the aggregate. Finally, unlike in the earlier macro-level income distribution
experiments, we found no difference in behavior between men and women in this
micro-level experiment.
What to make of these results? First, with regard to equality, we did find some
evidence of egalitarian behavior, especially with regard to the allocation of food.
52 J. T. Scott
However, this result is open to alternative explanations. As we say in our discus-

sion of the results: “This result might be due to some participants having reasoned
that all recipients have a general need for food whereas they have differential spe-
cific needs for prescription medicine. If so, then this finding would further increase
doubts raised by some researchers (see Konow 2003, pp. 1232–1234) as to whether
equality is indeed a separate allocation principle, or instead is either too closely
related to need to be distinguishable or serves as a heuristic in the absence of rel-
evant information. Clearly, further research is necessary to understand how—or
whether—equality is a distinct allocation principle” (Scott and Bornstein 2009,
p. 844).
Second, the absence of a gender difference in behavior, which is not consis-
tent with our previous experiments or with most macro-level experimental studies,
raises another intriguing possibility with regard to whether equality is a distributive
justice principle. Here is what we wrote in conclusion with regard to this issue:
One potential explanation for this result is that our experiment is a micro-level study where
participants do not have to make assumptions or to extrapolate information about recipients
or context, as opposed to most macro-level studies, or public opinion surveys, concerning
views about the hypothetical or actual distribution of income or other goods across an entire
society. In our study, participants in principle perfectly know all the relevant characteristics
of the allocation context, good, and recipients because we stipulate these factors as part of
the experimental manipulations themselves. Most importantly, we stipulate the main char-
acteristics of the recipients: their demonstrated need for a given good and their contribution
to the (same) productive task. Women and men participants in our study may therefore
behave in the same way because they share the same information and assumptions. Other
research has shown that in the absence of specific information participants tend to extrapo-
late or to make assumptions in making decisions or judgments (see Kahneman et al.1986).
What the absence in our study of a difference of behavior between women and men may
suggest, then, is that the observed gender differences in other studies regarding distributive
justice behavior or core values determining public opinion could be due in large measure
to the different assumptions women and men make concerning the overall distribution of
goods in a society. Women and men may, for example, tend to make different assumptions
about the characteristics of the recipients of social welfare programs: for instance, whether
the economically disadvantaged are “deservingly” poor or not. If this conjecture is correct,
the implication is that differences in the core beliefs and values of women and men are
not the principal underlying cause for observed gender differences, but that assumptions
concerning the features of the distributive context, as they interact with these core values,
explain the observed gender gap in distributive justice behavior and support for social wel-
fare policies. Our study thus suggests some obvious lines of research that would confirm or
disconfirm this hypothesis about gender. (Scott and Bornstein 2009, p. 844)
In other words, it may be the case that the supposedly egalitarian behavior we wit-
nessed in the first two experiments, or at least some of that behavior, was not in fact
evidence that equality is a distributive justice principle, but instead that equality
is a heuristic. Individuals might use equality as a heuristic when they lack any or
enough relevant information to use a different principle or where they believe that
conditions are such that another principle cannot be invoked, for example where
“outputs” (e.g., income) are not the result of “inputs” (e.g., effort and ability) but
are instead the result of luck or other arbitrary factors. In other words, the results of
our micro-level study of distributive justice behavior may call into question how we
have interpreted the results of our macro-level studies.
In sum, this brief reexamination of some (hopefully) representative studies of
distributive justice beliefs and behavior has, I hope, at least raised questions about
whether—or to what extent—they actually show individuals using equality as a dis-
tributive justice principle. Our interpretation of the results of the first two, macro-
level, studies of judgments of income distribution as showing that equality is in fact
an important distributive justice principle seems entirely reasonable, and the same
could be said about the conclusions of numerous other empirical studies of distribu-
tive justice. However, in light both of the questions about equality and distributive
justice raised by the review of the philosophical literature and of the results of the
third, micro-level, study of distributive justice behavior, this interpretation seems
open to debate. Could it be the case that equality is not in fact a distributive justice
principle except under very specific conditions, if at all?
Avenues for Future Research
The present critical examination of the relationship between equality and distribu-
tive justice in both the philosophical tradition from Aristotle to Rawls and recent
experimental and other empirical research into distributive justice suggests several
potentially fruitful avenues for future research. I will conclude with a brief discus-
sion of four of these avenues.
The first and most obvious line of inquiry suggested by this examination is to
explore whether equality is indeed a distributive justice principle, or, again more
modestly, under what conditions it may be. In this regard, it would be important
to distinguish between when equality is specifically being employed as a distribu-
tive justice principle as opposed to a heuristic of some kind. One route to pursue
in this line of inquiry would be to vary the information concerning the allocation
context. In the micro-level experiment concerning distributive justice behavior in
different allocation contexts and different goods discussed above (Scott and Born-
stein 2009), I noted that participants made allocation decisions with something like
perfect information concerning the recipients. This experimental set-up therefore
largely removed equality as a heuristic, in the sense of a rule of thumb when rel-
evant information is lacking, and as such we saw very little specifically egalitarian
behavior. This experimental design could be applied with more information being
progressively added, for example from a baseline condition of providing no infor-
mation at all about recipients where we would expect to see considerable egalitar-
ian allocations and then progressively adding more relevant information that might
move participants away from equal allocations.
A second line of inquiry concerns further investigation of the relationship be-
tween distributive and procedural justice. Such studies exist, notably by Tom Tyler
and his collaborators (see Tyler et al. 1997), and they are generally designed to
54 J. T. Scott
examine the relative weight individuals accord to distributive as opposed to proce-

dural aspects of a decision regarding justice (e.g., legal proceedings) or distribution,
and they broadly suggest that the perception of procedural justice is critical in indi-
viduals being willing to accept a given decision or allocation, even when they are
on the short end of the stick in terms of the distributive outcome. The preceding
review of the philosophical tradition and argument that modern theories of distribu-
tive justice tend to convert issues of distributive justice into more tractable issues of
procedural justice are not inconsistent with these results. However, this review also
suggests that we at minimum need to be sensitive to our potentially unwitting (or
possibly witting) tendency to pose distributive justice decisions in a manner where
the procedure effectively determines the result, as in the case of cutting a cake by
the procedure of one person cuts and the other chooses.5 That is, in designing stud-
ies of distributive justice we may need to be more sensitive to the procedural issues
in the design if we want to isolate distributive justice beliefs and behaviors from
procedural issues or, in turn, we may want to consciously design studies where we
are precisely interested in manipulating the interaction between distributive and
procedural aspects of an allocation situation.
A third avenue suggested by the preceding remarks is to undertake studies that
examine the results of macro-level studies in light of those of micro-level studies,
and vice versa. For example, in the review of our recent experimental studies, I
suggested that the micro-level results where we do not see much egalitarian be-
havior might lead us to reinterpret the results of the macro-level studies where we
do seem to see such behavior. As with the suggestions regarding the first avenue
of inquiry suggested above, one route in this regard would be to more carefully
examine and manipulate informational aspects of the allocation decision in order
to determine whether equality is operating as a principle or as a heuristic. Another
route in this regard would be to nest micro-level studies within macro-level studies
in order to see how behavior at the micro-level is affected by certain characteristics
of the macro-level environment. This route has been informally pursued insofar
as allocation context can effectively represent a macro-level context within which
a micro-level behavior is examined (e.g., Scott and Bornstein 2009), but perhaps
this research design strategy should be adopted more self-consciously or system-
atically.
Finally, and most ambitiously, work needs to be done to develop a general theory
of allocation or distributive justice behavior and beliefs. Currently, research into
distributive justice is being done at a variety of levels, including micro- and macro-
levels, and across a number of disciplines with somewhat different approaches and
assumptions, such as psychology, political science, behavioral economics, etc., with
little communication across disciplines and no common foundation. A first step to-
ward such a goal might be a meta-analysis of research across these various arenas
in order to suggest fruitful cross-pollinations and to begin to establish a common
ground on which to further study distributive justice.
5
For an approach that embraces the method of cutting the cake, see Brams and Taylor 1996.
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Part II
Objectification and Discrimination
Chapter 3
A Psycholegal Model of Hostile Environments:
The Role of Dehumanization
Richard L. Wiener, Sarah J. Gervais, Ena Brnjic and Gwenith Nuss
Dehumanization and Hostile Environments
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “dehumanization” as “to deprive of hu-

man qualities, personality, or spirit” (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/
dehumanization). While this simple phrase captures the social and natural language
meaning of saying that an individual or a group of people dehumanizes another, it
is silent about the ways in which one person may deprive another of the quality of
humanness, what constitutes the qualities of being human, and how such depriva-
tion can harm the spirit of the target. The primary goal of this chapter is to examine
the concept of dehumanization from legal and psychological perspectives and ulti-
mately to seek an integration of these two points of view. The secondary goals are to
gain an understanding of what constitutes a dehumanizing situation and to describe
some of the ways that the law can respond to the harms that dehumanization causes.
We begin with two stories that appear uncontroversial on the surface in the sense
that almost all readers would agree that the underlying themes involve at least some
dehumanization.
Both stories are true summaries of events that took place at Lift Line, Inc., a divi-
sion of the Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority (RGRTA) starting
in 1994 and continuing over a 14-year period, finally ending in 2008 (Rivera vs.
Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority 2012). As a subsidiary of the
RGRTA, Lift Line provided transportation service for the elderly and the disabled
who live in and around the Rochester New York area. The first story is about Enio
Rivera, a man of Puerto Rican descent, who found out shortly after he came to
work as a bus driver for Lift Line in 1994 that Dominic Folino, a senior mechanic
at Lift Line was having an affair with Kimberly Rivera, Enio’s wife. Enio and Kim-
berly divorced, Kimberly married Dominic, and Enio remarried another woman.
R. L. Wiener () · S. J. Gervais · E. Brnjic · G. Nuss

Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA
e-mail: rwiener2@unl.edu
60 R. L. Wiener et al.
Between 2003 and 2007, Rivera claimed that Folino repeatedly referred to him as a
“spic” and a “Taco Bell.” On one occasion Folino and a coworker chanted to Rivera,
“What’s that smell, look at the fat fuc**r, there is Taco Bell” (Rivera vs. Rochester
Genesee Regional Transportation Authority 2012, p. 690). During other times, Fo-
lino and coworkers intimidated and bullied Rivera. For example, on one occasion
they confronted Rivera while he was driving out of the parking lot, cursing and star-
ing at him menacingly and at another time, they meddled with his time card. Rivera
claimed that Folino sprayed paint thinner at him, swerved his car toward him, and
regularly posted pictures of expensive gifts that he had given to Rivera’s son, who
was then living with Folino and Kimberly (Rivera vs. Rochester Genesee Regional
Transportation Authority 2012, p. 691). Rivera eventually filed a complaint with the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
Another worker at Lift Line, Michael Talton who is an African–American also
complained that he was the victim of harassment during an overlapping period of
time (2004–2006) (Rivera vs. Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Author-
ity 2012). Lift Line hired Talton in 2004 as a “fueler-washer” whose job was to
clean and service buses after the drivers returned with them at the end of their
routes. A white mechanic, John Stiggins, as well as Talton’s direct supervisor, John
Tiberio referred to Talton on several occasions with the word “n****r” (Rivera vs.
Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority 2012, p. 691). On one occa-
sion, Stiggins asked Talton to cover for him because Stiggins was trying to avoid
the attention of one of the company dispatchers. When Talton failed to do so, Stig-
gins said to Talton, “I thought you was my boy….You know what I’m talking about
n****r. You were supposed to look out for us.” When Talton complained, Stiggins
threatened Talton with a fistfight (Rivera vs. Rochester Genesee Regional Transpor-
tation Authority 2012, p. 691). On another occasion, Talton walked in on Stiggins
conversing with another coworker and heard him tell the coworker that he and a
second coworker named Sanhueza were out drinking and that Sanhueza “started
talking about n****rs” and said “wished all you n****rs died.” When Talton com-
plained, his supervisor called him a “n****r” and told him to “get over it” (Rivera
vs. Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority 2012, p. 691). In 2005,
Talton found a gun in the bus that Sanhueza was driving and reported it. Sanhueza
threatened Talton by shaking his hand in the shape of a gun and said, “I’m going to
kick your ass, n****r”. Lift Line fired Sanhueza for keeping a gun in the bus but
later reinstalled him as a fueler-washer to resolve a dispute with the union over the
incident. Lift Line assigned Talton to the job of training Sanheuza who promptly
responded by once again calling Talton a “n****r”. Talton eventually filed a com-
plaint with the EEOC.
While most readers will find the situations that Rivera and Talton confronted
at Lift Line at least somewhat dehumanizing, the legal history of the case showed
that it was unclear whether either of the complainants would have his day in court.
Rivera and Talton jointly filed a lawsuit in the federal Western District Court of
New York under Title VII complaining of racial harassment that created a hostile
work environment only to find that the district court dismissed both claims (Rivera
vs. Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority 2011). The district court
3 A Psycholegal Model of Hostile Environments 61
held that any harassment that Rivera suffered arose out of a personal conflict with
another worker, not because of his national origin, and therefore was not a viola-
tion of the Title VII prohibition of hostile work environments. The district court
judge also found that Talton’s evidence based only upon crude language, spread out
over a number of years, was insufficient to establish a claim under Title VII of the
Civil Rights Act.1 Together the stories and the legal responses to the complaints at
the district court level raise some interesting and difficult questions about hostile
environments, including:
1. What is a hostile environment?
2. How is dehumanization related to hostile environments?
3. What are sources of dehumanization in hostile environments?
4. When does dehumanization become a violation of civil law?
5. What do we know about the causes and psychological outcomes of
dehumanization?
This chapter will analyze the issues that these questions pose and in the process pro-
vide a psycholegal model to answer the questions raised by these and other equally
disturbing fact patterns. The chapter will describe situations when the law of hostile
environments and the psychology of dehumanization agree, when they disagree,
and in the end offer a theory of dehumanization to explain hostile environments at
work, at school, and at home. Section II summarizes the law of hostile environments
at work, at home, and at school that are due to discrimination based upon gender,
race and ethnicity, national origin, age, and disability. Section III advances a theory
of dehumanization that explains how environments become hostile. Section IV dis-
cusses some of the research that underlies the psychology of hostile environments
and Section V will summarize the arguments, present the implications for law and
psychology, and suggest new areas for additional theoretical and empirical work.
The Law of Hostile Environments
In this section, we consider the most common types of hostile environments at

work, at school, and in the home prohibited under federal law. The section is not
exhaustive but summarizes the most common causes of action for sex, race, na-
tional origin, age, and disability. It is not exhaustive because we do not consider
state statutes or local ordinances, which have extended the reach of civil rights laws
both in areas covered under federal law (i.e., sex, race, religion, national origin, and
disability) and in areas for which the federal law does not define a protected class
(e.g., sexual orientation). Although the review is not exhaustive, the theories and ap-
proaches that the law uses to resolve federal violations are similar to the approaches
1
Upon appeal, the Second Circuit Appellate Court disagreed with the summary judgment and sent
the case back to the district court for further processing of the hostile work environment claim
where it is still under litigation.
that states and local municipalities take to resolve these same or similar issues.
Although a complete analysis of all the types of hostile environments is beyond the
scope of this chapter, the review presented here tracks the main contours of the law
and it allows us to draw some conclusions about the social psychology of hostile
environments.
Hostile Work Environments Based on Sex Hostile environments occur at work, at
home, and at school based upon misconduct around issues of race, sex, religion,
national origin, age, or disability status of the target or on some combination of
these factors. A hostile work environment is one that is “permeated with discrimi-
natory intimidation, ridicule, and insult” Harris vs. Forklift (1993, p. 21). As stated
in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (CRA), “It shall be an unlawful employment
practice for an employer … to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or
otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation,
terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race,
color, religion, sex, or national origin” (42 U.S.C.A. sec 20003-2; 703). In Meritor
Savings Bank vs. Vinson (1986, p. 2404), the US Supreme Court ruled that because
the statute included “terms and conditions of employment,” it was a violation for
employers to subject workers to “hostile work environments.” Vinson brought a
sexual harassment complaint, which provided the Court the opportunity to delineate
the elements of a hostile work environment due to sexual misconduct. As announced
by the Court (p. 2404) and reaffirmed in 1993 in Harris vs. Forklift Systems, a hos-
tile work environment is one in which one worker subjects another to unwelcome
conduct which is based upon sex and which is “sufficiently severe or pervasive to
alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive working environment.”
The abusiveness of the environment depends upon a totality of the circumstances
test, which takes into consideration how frequently the discrimination occurred, the
severity of the misconduct, whether it was humiliating and physically threatening or
merely an isolated miscommunication, and whether it interfered with an employee’s
work performance (Faragher vs. City of Boca Raton 1998; Harris vs. Forklift 1993;
Oncale vs. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc. 1998). As Justice O’Connor stated
in Harris (1993, p. 19), “…we can say that whether an environment is ‘hostile’ or
‘abusive’ can be determined only by looking at all the circumstances.” Furthermore,
the test of what constitutes a hostile work environment includes both a subjective
prong, that is, the complainant actually perceived the environment as either suffi-
ciently severe or pervasive to be abusive, and an objective prong, that is, a reason-
able person or victim’s reaction to a “similar environment under essentially like or
similar circumstances” (Harris 1993, p. 21) would also find the conduct unwelcome
and severe or pervasive enough to be abusive. This model of what constitutes a
hostile work environment under the CRA has become the model not only for sexual
harassment but also for other types of harassment due to race, ethnicity, disability,
and age.
We consider an example of hostile work environment harassment due to gender,
which results from sexual objectification (treating a human being not as a person
but rather as a sexual object for one’s own gratification, Nussbaum 1999) because
it illustrates the legal elements with a gender example that speaks directly to our
own research (Wiener et al. 2012). Josephine Chapple worked for Fahnestock &
Co., a securities broker firm, as a sales assistant in Manhattan. Chapple’s boss,
Robert Pelham, reacted to Ms. Chapple in ways that most would consider less than
professional, making inappropriate comments about her appearance, such as, “Oh,
you always know when Josephine is coming. Her chest is always right in front of
her” (Messer vs. Fahnstock & Co., Inc. 2008, p. 2). Not only did Pelham make these
types of comments to others, he did so in front of Chapple herself. Furthermore,
Chapple complained that she often looked up to find Pelham leering at her chest in a
sexual way as if “he were undressing her with his eyes” (p. 2). Finally, Pelham made
joking comments about Chapple suggesting that because of her special physical
endowment, the company could pay her to entertain brokers at meetings. There was
little disagreement that Chapple’s complaint met the subjective prong of the hostile
work environment test. Chapple found this sexual conduct unwelcome as evidenced
by the fact that she complained to Pelham and broke into tears when he referred to
and stared at her chest. She had a difficult time working with Chapple and eventu-
ally lodged a complaint with the EEOC, which concluded that Pelham had humili-
ated Chapple with his comments and associated behaviors. When Chapple filed a
complaint against Fahnestock & Co. in district court, the judge agreed that the mis-
conduct was serious enough to go forward to a jury to determine whether the leering
and comments were sufficiently severe or pervasive in an objective sense to violate
the CRA of 1991 in the form of a hostile work environment.
The way in which different federal jurisdictions set the severity or pervasiveness
standard shows a good deal of variability in interpreting the totality of the circum-
stances. For example, in Garriga vs. Novo Nordisk, Inc. (2010) the 11th Circuit
Court of Appeals affirmed a district court ruling that Vivian Garriga was not the vic-
tim of a hostile work environment due to sexual harassment at the hands of her boss,
Brian Taylor. Taylor came to work for Novo Nordisk, a pharmaceutical distributing
firm, after Garriga was already working for the company. During his early encoun-
ters with Garriga, Tayler bantered with her about sexual behavior asking her with
which celebrity she wished to have sex. Garriga asked Taylor to stop but instead he
put his arm around Garriga one day in the parking lot before a business trip and,
according to Garriga, he leered at her breasts and backside on several subsequent
occasions. The 11th Circuit upheld the district court’s summary judgment conclud-
ing that Taylor’s behavior failed the objective test for a hostile work environment,
even if he had acted as Garriga claimed, because the conduct was neither severe nor
pervasive enough to constitute an abusive work environment. Thus, there is some
need to understand from both psychological and legal points of view the contours
of hostile environments. We believe that a fuller understanding of dehumanization
offers a fruitful path for understanding the characteristics of hostile environments
that flow from discrimination.
Hostile Work Environments Based on Race or National Origin Congress enacted
Title VII in 1964, a time in US history when the nation’s minority populations forced
the majority to face and try to ameliorate the high prevalence of discrimination
based upon race and national origin. Nonetheless, the problem of discrimination
at work based upon race, ethnicity, or national origin is still with us today. The
model for hostile work environments due to race, color, and national origin follows
a very similar theory as the one for hostile work environments due to sexual harass-
ment. For example, in another transportation case, Massachusetts Bay Transporta-
tion Authority (MBTA) hired Chungchi Che, a man of Asian descent as a driver
in and around the Boston area in 1982 (Che vs. Massachusetts Bay Transporation
Authority 2003). Che worked hard and did well at his position so that MBTA sent
Che to a training institute to learn about police work in 1988. During this train-
ing, Che learned about federal, state, and local law prohibiting discrimination and
later came to believe that he was a victim of harassment on the job. Ultimately, he
filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. The
complaint stemmed from actions that began in 1993 at which time Che advanced
at MBTA and became a chief inspector with the responsibility of monitoring the
operation of the “Green Line.” As chief inspector, Che reported directly to James
Johnson, the superintendent of the Green Line. In 1994, Che and another employee
were involved in an argument and Johnson demoted Che to a streetcar operator.
At a meeting with the union representative to resolve the issue, Che suffered an
anxiety attack and passed out. When the union representative asked Johnson to call
for assistance, Johnson hesitated stating, “I think this Ch**k is faking it” (p. 35).
The union negotiated a resolution with MBTA so that Che’s punishment became a
3-day suspension. However, Che complained that following this incident Johnson
had improperly disciplined him on a number of subsequent occasions. For example,
Johnson wrote Che up for calling in an automobile accident using his telephone
rather than a radio despite the fact that MBTA allowed employees to use either
method to report. In November of 1995, Che noticed piles of leaves on the tracks of
the Green Line on top of the heated coils that MBTA uses to clear the tracks of frost
during the cold months. Che wrote in the assignment book that the heaters should
remain off until workers cleaned the leaves from the track. When Johnson read that
Che wrote in the assignment book without his permission, he again demoted Che
for insubordination to the job of streetcar operator. Che fell ill after the incident,
went on sick leave, and filed his complaint with the Massachusetts Commission
Against Discrimination claiming among other issues that Che’s supervisor used
harsh discipline with him because of his national origin. Che claimed that MBTA’s
disciplinary actions were more severe for him than for other workers who were not
Asian. Included in the complaint were other examples including evidence that his
supervisors (i.e., Johnson) admonished Che for requesting meal breaks, that his
supervisors allowed other workers to scream at Che with impunity, and that supervi-
sors on a number of occasions referred to Che as a “Ch**k.” After receiving a find-
ing of reasonable cause Che went on to win a favorable outcome in federal district
court, which MBTA unsuccessfully appealed to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.
The doctrine of hostile work environment harassment for race, national origin,
color, or religion is clear and settled law. Complainants must show by a prepon-
derance of the evidence that they are members of a protected class (based upon
sex, race, religion, color, or national origin under Title VII) and that the employer
subjected them to harassment because of the protected class status (in the case of
Mr. Che, national origin). Furthermore, the harassment was sufficiently severe or
pervasive to create an abusive work environment from the subjective perspective of
the complainant and the objective point of view of a reasonable person. The First
Circuit Court of Appeals upheld this formula in the Che case, citing the prior de-
lineation of these factors at the district court level (PowerComm, LLC vs. Holyoke
Gas & Electric Department 2010). The elements of a hostile work environment
under Title VII are similar in all federal jurisdictions. While the law is settled on
the elements of a hostile work environment, it leaves open for interpretation what
factors may rise to the level of abuse and when the totality of circumstances does
and does not cross that not so bright line. As we argue below, the psychology of
dehumanization may offer an empirical approach to answering these questions.
Hostile Work Environments Based on Age The Age Discrimination in Employment
Act (ADEA) prohibits employers from discriminating based upon an employee’s
age. Tracking closely the language in the CRA of 1964 amended in 1991, the ADEA
states, “It shall be unlawful for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge
any individual or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his
compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such
individual’s age”2 Sec. 4(623)(a)(1).
As a side issue, it is important to note that the US Supreme Court has interpreted
the causality prong in disparate treatment cases to be different under the language
of the ADEA than under the language of the CRA, ruling that the causality factor
requires “but for” or direct causality under the ADEA (Gross vs. FBL Financial
Services 2009). Disparate treatment cases, unlike hostile environment cases, require
that the employer acted with intent to reach an adverse outcome for the employee
based upon the protected factor. The CRA prohibits an employer from using gen-
der, race, religion, color, or national origin as a contributory factor in reaching an
employment decision (i.e., a mixed-motive theory of discrimination). However, in
Gross (2009) the Court held that Congressional amendments to the CRA (1991)
preserved the mixed-motive model but because there were no similar amendments
to the ADEA, it required direct causality, compelling complainants to show that
“but for” the age of the plaintiff, there would be a different employer decision.
Nonetheless, the holding in Gross (2009) should not, and as of yet has not, impacted
the availability of hostile work environment theories under the ADEA because hos-
tile work environment cases under either theory do not require “but for” causality.
Consider, for example, Dediol vs. Best Chevrolet, Inc. (2011). Milan Dediol
worked at Best Chevrolet during the summer of 2007 (June 1 until the end of Au-
gust). Dediol, who was 65 years old at the time of his employment, complained that
his supervisor, Donald Clay, treated him badly at work after he asked for a morning
off to attend a volunteer church event. Clay responded to Dediol’s request with the
language, “You old mother fu**er, you are not going over there tomorrow” and “if
you do go over there [I’ll] fire your fu***ng ass.” Dediol stated in his complaint that
2
The ADEA considers individuals 40 years or older to be members of the protected class.
following the church incident, Clay stopped using Dediol’s proper name and instead
called him “old mother fu**er,” “old man,” and “Pops” several times each day that
he was at work. Clay also spoke disparagingly of Dediol’s religion with comments
like, “God would not put food on your plate” and “Go to your fu***ng God and see
if he can save your job” (p. 438).
According to Dediol’s complaint, on several occasions Clay “stole” deals from
him and offered them to some of the younger salespeople. Dediol also stated that
on several occasions Clay picked fights with him and physically intimidated him
with threats of physical violence. When Clay learned that Dediol asked the general
manager to transfer him to the new car division to escape the bad treatment, Clay
denied the request and responded with, “Get your old fu***ng ass over here. You
are not going to work with new cars.”
Dediol filed a complaint with the EEOC and received a “right-to-sue” letter but
Best Chevrolet successfully filed for a summary judgment, which upon Dediol’s
appeal reached the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Fifth Circuit found that the
ADEA did support a hostile work environment claim pointing to a similar holding
in the Sixth Circuit (Crawford vs. Medina General Hospital 1996) and affirmed
the plaintiff’s right to relief. A hostile work environment claim due to age under
the ADEA requires plaintiffs to show by a preponderance of the evidence that “(1)
he was over the age of 40, (2) the employee was subjected to harassment, either
through words or actions, based on age, (3) the nature of the harassment was such
that it created an objectively intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment,
and (4) there exists some basis for liability on the part of the employer” (p. 441).
Until the US Supreme Court rules otherwise, the law, at least in some jurisdic-
tions, prohibits employers from creating hostile work environments because of an
employee’s age if the employee is over the age of 40. It is worth noting that similar
to the CRA cases, despite the prohibition against harassment due to age, there is
no specific standard for determining what constitutes a sufficient level of abuse to
reach an actionable cause under the totality of circumstances test. Again, the law is
gray on what does and does not cross that line. Before turning to the psychology of
dehumanization to obtain some insight into this question, we first consider hostile
work environments due to disability and hostile environments in contexts outside of
work, specifically at home and at school.
Hostile Environments Based upon Disability Congress wrote the Americans with
Disabilities Act in 1990 stating in part that “….no employer shall discriminate
against a qualified individual with a disability because of the disability of such indi-
vidual who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential
functions of the employment position, unless the accommodation would impose
an undue hardship on the operation of the business of that employer” (42 U.S.C.
§§ 12112(a), 12111(8), 12112(b)(5)(A)). The statute is more complex than either
the CRA or the ADEA because it includes a complicated formula, which requires
all plaintiffs filing under the ADA to demonstrate that they possess a qualified dis-
ability defined under the Act. Thus, individuals who argue that an organization
subjected them to hostile work environments based on a disability must show that
they possessed such a disability. Those claiming that an organization denied them
a benefit or invoked a disciplinary action based upon their disability must also
show that they were qualified for the job with or without reasonable accommoda-
tion and that any accommodations would not result in an “undue hardship” to the
employer. Although workers bringing hostile work environment actions are less
concerned with job qualifications and reasonable accommodations, they still need
to establish that they are disabled under the Act. An individual with “a physical or
mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activi-
ties…” is disabled (42 U.S.C. § 12102(2)(A)). Furthermore, a worker who does
not suffer from an illness is also disabled under the law if the employer “regards”
the worker as having such an impairment (42 U.S.C. §§ 12102(2)(B)-(C)). Early
on, the law was unclear about what constitutes a major life activity, but Congress’
2008 Amendments to the Act compiled a non-exhaustive list of major life activities
including, “caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating,
sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, read-
ing, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working” (42 U.S.C. §§ 12102(2)
(A)). Furthermore, the EEOC provided a broad definition of possible impairments
to major life activities including, “any physiological disorder, or condition, cos-
metic disfigurement, or anatomical loss affecting one or more of the following body
systems: neurological, musculoskeletal, special sense organs, respiratory (including
speech organs), cardiovascular, reproductive, digestive, genitor-urinary, hemic and
lymphatic, skin, and endocrine; or (2) any mental or psychological disorder, such
as mental retardation, organic brain syndrome, emotional or mental illness, and
specific learning disabilities” (29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(h) (2004)).
The early litigation under the ADA struggled to determine whether complain-
ants possessed disabilities covered by law or if they were disqualified because the
claimed impairments did not limit a major life activity. This continues to be a hotly
contested issue in current ADA litigation even under the broader 2008 Amend-
ments, which codified the EEOC’s list of impairments and expanded the definition
of disability. Making the matter even more complex, the Supreme Court ruled in
Sutton vs. United Air Lines, Inc. (1999) that in determining whether a plaintiff’s
impairment limited a major life activity, a lower court had to examine a complainant
after considering all mitigating measures, that is, any medical or rehabilitative aids
that reduce the functional limitation of the disability (e.g., medicines, orthopedic
aids, and visual aids). Thus, in Sutton the Court held that the Act did not protect two
women who wore corrective glasses and who had applied for, but did not receive
pilot positions with United Airlines because the eyeglasses corrected their vision
deficits. The law changed in 2008 when the Congressional Amendments to the Act
extended protection of the ADA to include impairments that mitigating measures
ameliorate (42 U.S.C. §§ 12102(4)(D)-(i-ii)).
What then of the viability of a hostile work environment claim under the ADA?
In 2001, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a hostile work environment
claim was available under the ADA (Flowers vs. Southern Regional Physician
Servs., Inc. 2001). Plaintiff Sandra Flowers was a medical assistant at Southern
Regional Physician Services Inc. from September 1993 to November of 1995. Prior
to 1995, Flowers was close socially with her supervisor, Margaret Hallmark, both
on the job and outside of work. In early 1995, Hallmark discovered that Flowers
had tested positive for HIV and soon changed her behavior toward the complainant.
Hallmark stopped socializing with Flowers, started listening in on her telephone
calls, eavesdropped on Flowers’ conversations with other workers, and spent a great
deal of time at Flowers’ desk observing Flowers’ work performance. Others in the
organization also interacted differently toward Flowers including the president of
the company refusing to shake hands with her and even avoiding her physical pres-
ence. Her supervisors required Flowers to take repeated random drug tests and on
one occasion, the president reprimanded Flowers, called her a “bitch” and told her
he was “fed up with her crap.” Flowers filed with the EEOC and received a right to
sue letter. She brought a case in federal court alleging among other charges that she
was the victim of hostile work environment harassment under the ADA. A jury trial
ensued and Flowers received a favorable verdict on the hostile work environment
claim.
Upon appeal, the Fifth Circuit held that HIV was a qualifying disability under
the ADA, and that the law allowed a hostile work environment claim based upon
such a disability. The Court ruled that under the ADA, a plaintiff must show that an
employer subjected the worker to unwelcome harassment because of the protected
class status and that the harassment was sufficiently severe or pervasive to create a
hostile work environment and unreasonably interfere with the worker’s job perfor-
mance (Flowers vs. Southern Regional Physician Servs., Inc. 2001). At least three
other circuit courts have followed suit and have allowed a hostile work environment
claim under the ADA: the Fourth Circuit (Fox vs. General Motors Corp. 2001),
the Eighth Circuit (Shaver vs. Independent Stave Co. 2003), and the Tenth Circuit
(Lanman vs. Johnson County, Kansas 2004).
In Lanman vs. Johnson County (2004, p. 1155), the Tenth Circuit Court of Ap-
peals agreed with these other circuit courts based upon the fact that Congress used
similar language in both Title VII and the ADA to prohibit discrimination against
“…any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges
of employment.” Therefore, the court found that Congress had intended to make
available the same hostile work environment claim for disability as it had for race,
national origin, sex, and religion under Title VII. In this case, the Deputy Sher-
iff in Johnson County, Kansas treated Lanman as if she was mentally ill, calling
her “nuts” or “crazy,” and repeatedly making statements to her such as, “Oh Lan-
man, you are going off the deep end again,” and “Are you off your medication?”
(p. 1155). Despite these findings, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the summary judgment
against Lanman because it did not believe she qualified under the ADA. Lanman
claimed a disability because the Sheriff’s office “regarded” her as if she had a men-
tal illness, which is a viable argument under the Act. However, the court concluded
that despite the many comments that her coworkers and supervisors made about her
erratic behavior, the County did not actually mistake Ms. Lanman as being men-
tally impaired. Furthermore, even if the County did regard her as mentally ill, it is
unlikely that the Sheriff’s office believed that Lanman’s impairment substantially
limited her in a major life activity. The court preferred to interpret the statements
and actions that the County engaged in to represent personality conflicts between
Lanman and her coworkers, an area of conflict that the ADA does not address. Thus,
while several courts have recognized the viability of a hostile environment under
the ADA, the burden of plaintiffs to establish that they have a qualified disability
under the law is difficult to meet.
Hostile Environments in School We turn next to consider whether the law prohibits
hostile educational environments. To begin, Title IX of the Educational Amend-
ments of 1972 states, “… no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex,
be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to
discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial
assistance” (20 U.S.C. § 1681(a). While the language in Title IX explicitly out-
laws discrimination in education due to sex, it does not provide language to specify
redress in court for a private action against a school or school system. Nonetheless,
over the last 40 years following the passage of the 1972 Amendment, the courts
have extended the reach of Title IX (20 U.S.C.A. §§ 1681 (a)) to prohibit hos-
tile environments in school, which arise out of unwelcome social sexual conduct
that teachers and students direct toward students and classmates. First, in Cannon
vs. University of Chicago (1979), the Supreme Court held that Congressional lan-
guage and statutory intent did imply the existence of a cause of action for gender
discrimination in school and it does allow private citizens to bring cases alleging
hostile school environments. However, the Supreme Court was silent in Cannon
about whether monetary damages that attach to a hostile environment theory under
Title VII of the CRA were available under Title IX. Without the availability to seek
remedies, the protection that Title IX provides against a hostile environment claim
at school would be minimal. The Supreme Court took up the issue in Franklin vs.
Gwinnett County Public School (1992), a case in which Christine Franklin, a high-
school student attending a school that received federal funds, argued that a male
coach at the school, Andrew Hill, repeatedly asked about her sexual experiences
with her boyfriend. Hill went on to ask Franklin if she was interested in having sex
with an older man, then forcibly kissed the girl in the school parking lot and finally
took her into an abandoned office and coerced her into having intercourse. The trial
court dismissed the civil case finding that Title IX did not allow monetary damages,
but the Supreme Court disagreed and held that monetary damages are available for
a private action enforceable under Title IX and remanded the case back to the lower
courts.
Despite these initial cases, it was not until 1998 in Gebser vs. Lago Vista Inde-
pendent School District that the Supreme Court formalized the required elements
of a hostile school environment under Title IX. Alida Gebser, an eighth-grade girl,
joined a book club at her middle school led by a teacher, Frank Waldrop, who made
sexually suggestive comments to many of the students in the club. When Gebser
advanced to high school the following fall, she found herself in Waldrop’s classes
where he continued to make inappropriate comments to her and eventually initiated
sexual contact while the two were alone in his classroom. Waldrop had sexual inter-
course with Gebser on multiple occasions into the following school year but never
on school property. Although Gebser did not report the incidents, other students
subjected to Waldrop’s inappropriate comments did complain to school officials
and several months later police caught Waldrop and Gebser engaged in intercourse
and arrested the teacher. Although Waldrop did lose his teacher’s license, the school
district never initiated an official sexual harassment civil action against him. The
district court granted summary judgment in favor of Lago Vista and the Fifth Circuit
Court of Appeals affirmed that judgment holding that school districts are not liable
under Title IX for teachers sexually harassing students unless a school official su-
pervising the alleged harasser had actual knowledge of the abuse and failed to act to
end the abuse. Only under those circumstances, does school policy come into play.
Upon appeal, the US Supreme Court agreed with the Fifth Circuit, stating “…
in cases like this one that do not involve official policy of the recipient entity, we
hold that a damage remedy will not lie under Title IX unless an official who at a
minimum has authority to address the alleged discrimination and to institute correc-
tive measures on the recipient’s behalf has actual knowledge of discrimination in
the recipient’s programs and fails to adequately respond” (Gebser 1998, p. 1999).
Although Waldrop did lose his teaching license and faced criminal charges, the ac-
tion against the school district for tolerating a hostile environment due to sex was
not successful.
Thus, under Title IX, if a teacher in a school that accepts federal funds creates
a hostile environment due to sex through sufficiently severe or pervasive conduct,
then the school (or school district) is liable for the harms that the discrimination
caused if school officials knew about the actions and took no measures to address
the problem. In short, schools must show deliberate indifference to hostile envi-
ronments due to sex, in order for complainants to bring successful cases. This, of
course, implies that schools can avoid liability for hostile environments if they act
to address the complaints before they reach the level of court action. For our purpos-
es, regardless of whether a complaint stops at the school level or goes through litiga-
tion, the impact of the law is to prohibit teachers from creating hostile environments
due to sex by engaging in pervasive or severe sexual conduct toward students.
What happens when students sexually harass other students? In Davis vs. Mon-
roe County Board of Education (1999), the parents of LaShonda D. brought a suit
in federal district court for injunctive relief and monetary damages claiming that
another student in a public elementary school harassed their daughter. The parents
claimed that a fifth-grade classmate, G.F., tried to touch LaShonda’s breasts and
genital area while making comments such as, “I want to get in bed with you” and “I
want to feel your boobs.” This went on for many months despite LaShonda report-
ing the incidents to her parents and her parents, in turn, reporting the behavior to
school officials. Although the school officials informed the principal, Bill Querry,
about the incidents, the school took no disciplinary action. The incidents stopped
only when authorities caught G.F. and charged him with sexual battery to which he
pleaded guilty. The district court dismissed the civil case finding that Title IX did
not allow a damage remedy for peer harassment in the public schools and the 11th
Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal. However, the US Supreme Court
overturned the ruling holding that, under Title IX, a school receiving public funds
may be liable for student-to-student sexual harassment if the school shows delib-
erate indifference to actual knowledge of a hostile environment due to sex, if the
school has some control over the alleged harassment and it elects to take no action.
Again, for our purposes, the impact of the law is to prohibit schools from allowing
students to create hostile environments due to sex by engaging in unwelcome sexual
conduct toward other students that is severe or pervasive.
There is some suggestion that schools might also be liable for hostile school
environments based upon national origin or race. For example, in Howard vs. Feli-
ciano (2008), the US District Court of Puerto Rico found that a teacher, Feliciano,
subjected an Anglo student, Robert, to a hostile environment at school because of
discriminatory comments that were sufficiently severe or pervasive to create an abu-
sive educational environment. The court let stand a $ 1,000,000 jury award against
the Puerto Rico Department of Education. In that case, the 11th-grade mathematics
teacher at a public school displayed posters in his classroom with derogatory com-
ments about American citizens referring to them as “gringos.” The teacher referred
to the plaintiff as a “son of a bitch American,” “asshole,” and “American jerk” while
looking menacingly at the student. Robert earned A’s in all his classes except a B in
science and a C in mathematics. Feliciano had announced to the class, “I am going
to give gringo Robert a C because he is an American” (Howard 2008, p. 257). The
school principal took no action other than discussing the situation with Feliciano.
The boy’s parents went to court first for a restraining order against Feliciano be-
cause their complaints to the school officials went without any response. Finally,
the boy’s parents moved back to the US mainland to escape the harassing conduct.
The court relied upon Title VI (42 U.S.C. Sect. 2000d) which states, “No person
in the United States shall on the grounds of race, color or national origin, be exclud-
ed from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination
under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” The district
court took notice that the Supreme Court of the US has consistently interpreted Title
VI and Title IX in a similar manner (citing Barnes vs. Gorman 2002 ; Cannon vs.
University of Chicago 1979). The district court, relying upon the Title IX hostile
school environment logic, held that for the plaintiff to prevail, he needed to show
that he was a student subjected to abusive conduct because of his national origin,
and that the conduct was sufficiently severe or pervasive to create an abusive educa-
tional environment. However, following the Gebser case line, the district court held
that the government was only liable if the plaintiff could show that an official who
had the authority to remedy the situation was actually aware of the conduct and did
not take the steps necessary to correct the misbehavior.
In Bryant vs. Indep. Sch. Dist. No. I-38 (2003), the Tenth Circuit Court of Ap-
peals also seemed to indicate that there was a private cause of action available under
Title VI prohibiting schools from allowing a hostile environment due to race. In that
case, the plaintiffs were African-American students who claimed that their school
suspended them, but not the Caucasian students involved in a fight. The plaintiffs
alleged that the school officials allowed white students to carve offensive racial
slurs, epithets, swastikas, and the letters KKK in school furniture. Furthermore,
school officials ignored Caucasian students wearing T-shirts with confederate flags,
which was against the school dress code. They claimed that the school officials
were aware of the hostile environment but did not act to correct the situation, which
eventually led to the fight between the African-American and Caucasian students
(Bryant 2003). The Tenth Circuit held that in that jurisdiction, the lower courts
should apply the US Supreme Court’s test in Davis vs. Monroe County Board of
Education (1999, p. 633), which allows a private suit for “deliberate indifference to
known acts of student-to-student harassment,” which can be “an intentional viola-
tion of Title IX capable of supporting a private damages action.” Thus, until the
Supreme Court rules differently, there is at least in the Tenth Circuit, and in Puerto
Rico, a prohibition against hostile school environments due to national origin and
race under Title VI, which applies similarly as does Title IX. It is only a matter of
time until other plaintiffs bring similar cases in other jurisdictions.
Hostile Environments under the Fair Housing Act We have shown that under the
right circumstances, federal law prohibits hostile work environments in our work-
places and schools. We turn now to consider hostile environments at home. As with
other types of hostile environments, the model for establishing a hostile housing
environment claim follows from the model of hostile working environment due
to sex under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. At least three federal appeals courts
including the Seventh Circuit (DiCenso vs. Cisneros 1996), the Tenth Circuit
(Honce vs. Vigil 1993), and the Eighth Circuit (Quigley vs. Winter 2010) recognize
in the Fair Housing Act (42 U.S.C.A. Section 3601), a viable theory for hostile
housing environments resulting from sexual harassment. The Fair Housing Act pro-
hibits discrimination based upon sex in both the selling or renting of housing with
language similar to that found in Title VII, “ … It shall be unlawful: (a) To refuse
to sell or rent after the making of a bona fide offer, or to refuse to negotiate for the
sale or rental of, or otherwise make unavailable or deny, a dwelling to any person
because of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin. (b) To dis-
criminate against any person in the terms, conditions, or privileges of sale or rental
of a dwelling, or in the provision of services or facilities in connection therewith,
because of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin” (42 U.S.C.A.
Section 3604(a)(b)) .
Consider the recent case of Quigley vs. Winter (2010), in which renter Jaymie
Quigley and her four children lived in one of many homes that aid of Dale Winter
owned in Iowa with the Section 8 housing vouchers. Winter told Quigley that she
was eligible to live in a larger house under the voucher system and drove her to view
the home. Upon return to the car, Winter rubbed his hand down Quigley’s arm and
asked how she liked the house. Later, when Quigley’s boyfriend moved out of her
house, Winter entered the home without prior notice and moved Quigley’s clothing
around. When she complained, Winter told her he was in the house to fix a screen
but the screen was not in need of repair at that time (Quigley 2010, p. 944). On an-
other occasion, Winter came in to inspect Quigley’s home at dinnertime, stood very
close to Quigley and rubbed his crotch. On still another occasion, Winter entered
Quigley’s home at bedtime when her daughters were dressed in pajamas and he
refused to leave until she forcefully asked him to leave a third time.
Shortly before Quigley’s lease ended, Winter came by to find Quigley outside
lying in the sun with her sister and a friend. Quigley asked Winter if she would be
getting her deposit back. Winter responded by reaching down, “fluttering” his hand
against Quigley’s stomach and then saying, “My eagle eyes have not seen every-
thing yet.” Just before Quigley was about to move out, in part, to escape the un-
welcome attention from her landlord, Winter came by to find Quigley’s 14-year-old
sister was visiting and at the time wearing shorts and a sport bra. Winter said to the
girl, “You’re really mature. How old are you?…Well, she looks a lot more mature
than you [to Quigley]” (Quigley vs. Winter 2010, p. 945).
Quigley filed a complaint with the Sioux City Human Rights Commission and
eventually in district court. Among the other claims that she brought was a hostile
housing environment claim under the Fair Housing Act. The jury found in favor of
Quigley. Upon appeal, the Eighth Circuit held that there was a viable hostile hous-
ing environment claim available under the Fair Housing Act. The Court went on to
say, “In this case, there was sufficient evidence to support a hostile housing environ-
ment claim, if a reasonable jury could find Quigley provided by a preponderance of
the evidence, that Winter subjected her to unwelcome sexual harassment, and that
the harassment was sufficiently severe or pervasive so as to interfere with or de-
prive Quigley of her right to use or enjoy her home” (Quigley 2010, pp. 946–947).
Thus, the law of hostile housing environments due to sex follows the law of hostile
work environment sexual harassment under Title VII. However, a hostile housing
environment must interfere or deprive plaintiffs of their right to use or enjoy the
property that they have rented instead of creating an abusive work situation.
The extension of hostile housing environments to abusive environments due to
other protected classes (e.g., race or disability) has been less successful.3 Some
courts have held that the Fair Housing Act only prohibits discrimination in the buy-
ing or renting of houses or apartments (including making loans) but is silent once
the consumer lives in the house. In Halprin vs. The Prairie Single Family Homes
of Dearborn Park Association (2004), Judge Posner of the Seventh Circuit held
that the language in the Fair Housing Act coupled with Congressional intent only
meant to prohibit owners and agents from discriminating against minority groups in
selling or renting practices. He went on to say that the law did not target the future
problems of protected class members after they occupied their places of residence.
The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has promulgated
regulations that make it “unlawful to coerce, intimidate, threaten, or interfere with
any person in the exercise or enjoyment of, or on account of his having exercised
or enjoyed, or on account of his having aided or encouraged any other person in the
exercise or enjoyment of, any right granted or protected by section… 3604… of this
title.” However, the Courts do not uniformly agree that HUD’s rules are consistent
with Congress’s intentions under the Fair Housing Act. The issue is alive in the
3
Note that there are many other claims that are actionable under the Fair Housing Act including
claims for reasonable accommodations for disabled individuals and for unfair rent and loan poli-
cies practiced against all protected classes including race, color, religion, sex, familial status, and
national origin.
courts and we will likely see additional litigation at the trial and ultimately appellate
level of litigation. In the meantime, there is some law that prohibits hostile housing
environments because of race under the FHA. The plaintiffs must show that they
are members of a protected class, the conduct was unwelcome, the plaintiff’s race
caused the conduct, the conduct was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the liv-
ing conditions and produce an abusive housing environment, and that the defendant
knew or should have known about the abusive conduct (Smith vs. Mission Asso-
ciates Limited Partnership 2002). A similar paradigm using hostile environments
under the ADA led the Eighth Circuit to find a hostile housing environment action
due to disability under the FHA and the Rehabilitation Act (Neudecker vs. Boisclair
Corporation 2003).
Dehumanization in Behavior Settings: A Theory of Hostile

Environments
As Section II shows, the law prohibits hostile environments at work, at school, and
in the home under certain limiting and qualifying conditions but does not univer-
sally protect people from having to endure abusive environments that result from
discrimination based upon race, ethnicity, religion, gender, national origin, age,
or disability. From a psychological perspective, each type of hostile environment
shares defining characteristics, which in some circumstances are a violation of civil
law but not so, under other circumstances, depending upon whether the subject of
abusive conduct is a protected class under the law and upon how much protection
the law provides.
Our theory of hostile environments makes use of the concept of behavior settings
(Barker 1978), which started with the idea that the current environment influences
the behavior of the inhabitants of those environments as much, if not more, than do
the characteristics of the inhabitants. Although Barker advanced behavior setting
theory to make sense of the repeated patterns of behaviors of children at school,
social psychologist Alan Wicker (1987, 1992) borrowed the concept to examine
the role of human cognition in the environment. Accordingly, behavior settings are
miniature self-contained social systems made up of people and physical objects
(Wicker 1992). Although they have space and time boundaries, behavior settings re-
emerge repeatedly over time featuring the same patterns of behavior, known as the
setting program (Wicker 1979). In other words, the setting program, an established
sequence of interactions among the inhabitants of the setting in the context of their
common environment, is the defining property of the setting. According to Wicker,
behavior settings are social constructions that we use to make sense of the roles of
other people and to negotiate behavioral interactions among the inhabitants of the
settings. A setting becomes hostile if one or more of the inhabitants dehumanizes
other inhabitants of the setting as a feature of the setting program. This leads to our
major assertion: A hostile environment whether at work, in school, or at home is one
that features dehumanization as part of the setting program. That is, one or more
people in the setting dehumanize others based upon a characteristic that defines
a social category. Federal law may or may not prohibit individuals from creating
hostile environments depending upon whether the social category, which gives rise
to the dehumanization, is a protected class and whether or not the law allows a cause
of action in the specific context. The law treats behavior settings differently depend-
ing upon not only the extent of dehumanization present but also upon the reasons
and purposes for the settings’ existence in the first place.
Regardless of whether or not federal law prohibits a hostile environment, it is
useful to consider in more detail what we mean by dehumanization in order to un-
derstand exactly what constitutes a hostile environment or a dehumanized behavior
setting. Haslam (2006; Haslam et al. 2013) argues convincingly that before we can
make sense out of the concept of dehumanization, it is first necessary to understand
the common meaning of humanness. In other words, the way a reasonable person
comes to know that an environment is hostile, that it is dehumanized, depends upon
the perceiver’s judgment about whether the environment denies one or more of the
behavior settings’ inhabitants the defining characteristics of being human. Accord-
ing to Haslam (2006; Haslam et al. 2013), our everyday understanding of being
human is a mixture of uniquely human (UH) characteristics, which separate people
from other animals, and human nature (HN) characteristics, which are attributes
that are prototypical features at the core of being human and that distinguish people
from inanimate objects. These attributes are not objective features that define a hu-
man being in a scientific sense; instead, they are common language characteristics
that people use to think about humanness in their everyday lives. In other words,
Haslam (2006; Haslam et al. 2013) asserts that in common discourse, people think
of others as possessing a set of UH characteristics that form boundaries between
humans and animals and that they intuitively identify other HN characteristics that
define the central factors of being human. Haslam theorizes that these factors estab-
lish the common language meaning of humanness, which we believe are important
from a social normative and from a legal perspective because they determine soci-
ety’s boundaries of being human and ultimately shape discrimination law.
UH characteristics emerge from socialization and culture and are therefore not
universal but instead show substantial variation across cultures. As a result, people
likely come to understand them later in their chronological development (Haslam
2006; Haslam et al. 2013). Haslam discusses both UH and HN features as a series
of bipolar attributes, each on a continuum with presence on one side and absence
on the other side. The UH dimensions are (1) civility vs. lack of culture, (2) re-
finement vs. coarseness, (3) moral sensitivity vs. amorality (no self-constraint), (4)
rationality and logic vs. irrationality and instinct, and (5) maturity vs. childlikeness.
In other words, in everyday social discourse, we consider people who show signs
of civility, refinement, a strong sense of morality, thinking rationally, and acting in
a mature manner as the most human. To dehumanize an individual and make the
person appear more like an animal than a person (i.e., animalistic dehumanization),
a perceiver would deny that person one or more UH characteristics. Therefore, one
way in which behavior setting can be hostile is for people to treat other inhabit-
ants as if they were less than human; that is, viewing them as if they were lacking
in refinement, civility, self-control, maturity, and higher cognitive processes. We

expect less human and more animal-like individuals to behave out of instinct or ap-
petite rather than out of thoughtful deliberation. Thus, in Che vs. Massachusetts Bay
Transportation Authority 2003), when Mr. Che’s supervisor called him a “Ch**k”
and applied unduly harsh punishment, he was treating the Asian man as less than
human and more as an animal without culture or refinement, as one who needed
external controls to offset his amoral nature. When we dehumanize others in an
animalistic manner, we appraise them with the emotions of disgust and contempt
(Haslam 2006), emotions that Mr. Johnson’s behavior manifestly expressed toward
Chungchi Che.
According to Haslam (2006), animalistic dehumanization features prominently
in interethnic relations based upon factors such as race, national origin, ethnicity, or
religion gone awry (see Che vs. Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority 2003;
Bryant vs. Indep. Sch. Dist. 2003). People who apply animalistic dehumanization
see others as members of an out-group occupying a lower social stratum than their
in-group. Thus in Bryant (2003), when the school principal allowed white students
to carve offensive racial slurs, epithets, swastikas, and the letters KKK in school
furniture and ignored Caucasian students wearing T-shirts with confederate flags,
they clearly sent a message that Black students were subordinate to Whites in the
school behavior setting. The norms of the environment or the program setting made
it acceptable to treat African-American students as coarse, uncultured, and childlike
in nature. In short, the school allowed the white students to deny the humanity of the
Black students treating them more like animals than fellow humans.
HN attributes represent the biological bases of being human. According to Haslam
(2006; Haslam et al. 2013), HN characteristics link people to the natural world and
in that sense, most all cultures endorse them and they are prevalent in most social
interaction. The HN dimensions are (1) emotionally responsive vs. inert, (2) inter-
personal warmth vs. coldness, (3) cognitive openness vs. rigidity, (4) agency and in-
dividuality vs. passivity and fungibility, and (5) depth vs. superficiality. Universally,
we consider people who are emotionally responsive, warm, cognitively open, active
and deep in meaning as the most human in a biological sense. To dehumanize an
individual and make the person appear more like an inanimate object than a living
organism (i.e., mechanistic dehumanization), a perceiver would deny that person one
or more HN characteristics. Therefore, a second way in which an environment can
be hostile is for people to treat others as if they were inanimate objects viewing them
as if they were inert, cold, rigid, superficial, and fungible. In other words, when we
mechanistically dehumanize people, we treat them as if they were objects without
their own purposes and autonomy. People who mechanistically dehumanize others
see their existence as means to an end; that is, they exist more as objects in the be-
havior setting than as fellow human inhabitants. In the eyes of the dehumanizer, the
role of such individuals in the behavior setting program is to satisfy the dehuman-
izer’s own purposes and not to act as people with their own agency and individuality.
Thus, in Messer vs. Fahnstock & Co. (2008), when Robert Pelham stared at Jo-
sephine Chapple and stated, “Oh, you always know when Josephine is coming. Her
chest is always right in front of her,” he was viewing her an inert object, a fixture of
the behavior setting, rather than as a fully human being with her own individuality,
purpose, and agency. Pelham showed that he saw Chapple as superficial and fun-
gible, an interchangeable part of the setting, when he suggested, presumably in jest,
that the company could pay her to entertain brokers at meetings. That is, she was not
a person with her own sense of meaning and her own motivations; instead, Pelham
saw her as an inanimate object interchangeable with any one of a number of other
women whose purpose was to serve only as an object of sexual desire. When we
dehumanize others in a mechanistic manner, we show little emotion toward them at
all regarding them with indifference or mild disregard. Certainly, Mr. Pelham saw
Ms. Chapple as a cold and rigid fixture of the behavior setting and reacted toward
her with indifference.
Haslam’s (2006; Haslam et al. 2013) treatment of mechanistic dehumanization is
very similar to philosopher Martha Nussbaum’s (1999) classical discussion of ob-
jectification, which feminist scholars in psychology use almost synonymously with
sexual objectification. According to Nussbaum, objectification means “…treating
as an object what is really not an object, what is in fact, a human being” (p. 218).
She went on to summarize seven ways in which one can objectify another focusing
on sexual objectification of women. First, one can objectify through fungibility,
which refers to situations when one person treats another as interchangeable with
similar persons or other group members (e.g., one woman is indistinguishable from
another woman). Second, one objectifies another through the denial of subjectiv-
ity, which refers to situations when one person sees another as lacking feelings and
experiences (e.g., the sum total of a woman is her looks). Third, one can objectify
another through perceptions of inertness, which refers to situations when one person
treats another as lacking agency (e.g., a woman is to be acted upon and not herself
an actor). Fourth, one can objectify through instrumentality, which refers to situa-
tions when one person treats another as an instrument for use (e.g., a woman’s pur-
pose is to satisfy men’s needs). Fifth, one can objectify through violability, which
refers to situations when one person can deny another person accepted boundaries
(e.g., a woman’s body can be violated or broken up). Sixth, one can objectify by
feelings of ownership, which refers to situations when one sees another as a com-
modity (e.g., my car is similar to my woman). Finally, one can objectify another
by denial of autonomy, which refers to situations when one person sees another as
lacking independence and self-determination (e.g., a woman cannot make her own
decisions). While it is an empirical question whether treating an individual in only
one of these ways is sufficient to stand as objectification in a more general sense,
feminist scholars agree in principle that to treat a human being in any one of these
ways may constitute sexual objectification (Nussbaum 1999). In the language of
behavior setting theory, one individual objectifies another to the extent to which the
recipient becomes more like an inanimate object in the setting than like another hu-
man agent with her or his own motivations, intentions, and purposes.
We must point out that objectification need not always be dehumanizing, but
in some way that depends upon the program of the behavior setting in which it
occurs, the motivations of the target, and the motivations of the person doing the
objectifying. For example, employers objectify their employees in most situations,
hiring them to perform specific tasks, seeing them as somewhat fungible, and not
always being concerned with their autonomy, sense of purpose, or with their sub-
jectivity or sense of internal emotional satisfaction. Nonetheless, few of us, per-
haps with the exception of those avidly opposed to market based economies (Marx
1964), would insist that a sales clerk in a store who sells cosmetics or accessories
to consumers for a salary suffers from dehumanization. That is, we recognize that
the behavior setting programs that define most businesses endorse a pattern of ob-
jectification because objectification is essential to the settings if they are to achieve
their essential purpose of existence, namely to promote the development, sale, and
delivery of products and services. Similarly, few of us would find consensual flirt-
ing at a local bar or pub among consenting adults dehumanizing, despite the fact
that both actors may see the other as a source of sexual desire. In both of these ex-
amples, the objectified individual agrees either explicitly (the sales clerk) or implic-
itly by visiting a local bar (the consenting adults) to being treated as an instrument
and fungible for others’ purposes in at least some realms and for limited purposes.
In other words, the purpose of the bar or pub behavior setting is to provide an op-
portunity for individuals to seek out the company of others with the potential for a
possible romantic interlude. However, under other circumstances the experience of
objectification quickly becomes mechanistic dehumanization. This is most likely to
occur in behavior settings with programs that do not include objectification as a fun-
damental process necessary to achieve the settings’ purpose. This is most evident
when people reduce others to sexual objects even though others have not agreed to
the unwelcomed sexual attention or when people objectify others according to their
age, treating them as inanimate objects without their own sense of subjective well-
being or agency. For example, in Quigley vs. Winter (2010), Jaymie Quigley’s land-
lord repeatedly touched her in unwelcome ways rubbing his hand down her arm and
stomach. When he went on to stare at her young daughters dressed in pajamas and
to imply that he was interested in seeing Quigley undressed, Winter’s unwelcomed
attention targeted Quigley as a superficial and fungible sex object whose purpose
was to satisfy his own desires. Quigley was only interested in the landlord-renter re-
lationship and had not agreed tacitly or explicitly to any other type of arrangement.
She entered the apartment setting only because she understood its program to be one
that existed to satisfy her housing needs but not any romantic function. This is not
dissimilar to the age-based objectification described in Dediol vs. Best Chevrolet,
Inc. (2011), when Donald Clary, Dediol’s supervisor, responded to the 65-year-old
auto salesman’s request to attend a volunteer church event by cursing him for being
old. When Clary referred to Dediol as “old mother fu***r”, “old man,” and “pops”
several times each day, there is little doubt that he saw him as someone lacking
autonomy, fungible and indeed as something that is owned by another, and whose
experience and feelings were irrelevant.
Once again, our major assertion is that a hostile environment is one in which the
inhabitants of a behavior setting dehumanize one or more of other inhabitants based
upon one or more of the target’s immutable or nearly immutable social character-
istics that define a social category. If the social category is a protected class and
the settings and circumstances afford protection to the victims of dehumanization
as specified under the appropriate statute and case law, then the dehumanized en-
vironment is a hostile environment intolerable to the norms, regulations, and laws
of society. The dehumanization can occur at work, in school, or at home. The first
step in creating a hostile work environment is to separate the inhabitants of behavior
settings into social categories along social fault lines. Some differentiations that
have been made within the context of the dehumanization literature (Haslam 2006,
2012) are unprotected under the law (other vs. self, social class, education, sexual
orientation4, and status/power) while others (race, national origin, gender, religion,
age, and disability) are covered by federal statute. Thus, while dehumanization per-
taining to the first set of factors could create a potential hostile environment from
the target’s perspective, denying humanness based upon these social factors will
not result in a violation of civil rights as defined by federal law. However, we ac-
knowledge that for some federally unprotected social dimensions such as sexual
orientation, there are state and local protections so that dehumanization along those
social fault lines could produce illegal hostile environments under limited state or
local jurisdictions.
Second, dehumanization results when the inhabitants of behavior settings deny
UH or HN factors to other inhabitants along the contours of these societal fault
lines. The extent of dehumanization in a given environment is a function of the
number and strength of UH or HN factors that inhabitants deny to others. The de-
nial of some UH factors (e.g., morality and maturity) likely carries more meaning
than the denial of others (e.g., civility and refinement) and the denial of some HN
factors (e.g., agency and individuality) likely carries more meaning than other HN
characteristics (e.g., cognitive openness and depth). Furthermore, if more than one
person engages in the discriminatory behavior then the number and types of denied
UH and HN factors will increase resulting in a more abusive hostile environment.
Our third point follows from the first two. We see dehumanization as varying along
a continuum from minimal or no dehumanization, where all inhabitants attribute
all UH and HN characteristics to all other inhabitants of the behavior setting, to a
maximum in which multiple inhabitants deny all or nearly all UH and HN factors
to one or more in the behavioral setting. The fourth point in our model is that, in
principle, researchers can measure the level of dehumanization and therefore hos-
tility in an environment through cataloguing the number and type of UH and HN
factors that inhabitants attribute and/or deny to targets in the setting. Following
the law, measurement of dehumanization in an environment ought to focus on the
properties of severity and pervasiveness. Here, severity (i.e., harsh and unsparing
treatment of others) is the degree to which inhabitants of settings partially or com-
pletely deny UH or HN factors to others. This includes the number and type of de-
nied human attributes. Pervasiveness pertains to whether others deny the UH or HN
factors throughout the environment or only in limited situations or circumstances
(see Fig. 3.1).
4
As of the time of that we wrote this paper (April 2013), the federal courts had not accepted sexual
orientation as a dimension that created protected classes as they have done under some circum-
stances for gender, race, national origin, religion, age, and disability.
Fig. 3.1 Determination of illegal hostile environment
We acknowledge that in real world behavior settings, there are probably few
examples of pure forms of animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization. Most hos-
tile environments likely contain elements of both types of dehumanization. None-
theless, following the lead of Haslam (2006; Haslam et al. 2013), we expect that
intergroup discrimination based upon race, national origin, religion, and sometimes
gender where people make comparisons between in-groups and out-groups is most
likely associated with animalistic dehumanization. Furthermore, discrimination that
involves comparisons of the self to individual others along dimensions of gender,
age, or disability, rather than comparisons to out-groups, features mechanistic de-
humanization (see Fig. 3.2). Other types of mechanistic dehumanization such as
denying HN characteristics based upon status, power, personality features, and edu-
cation level are not legally actionable but may cause social problems that are just
as debilitating. For example, treating poor people as cogs in an economic machine,
denying them individuality, agency, interpersonal warmth, and emotional respon-
siveness is a serious political and social problem, but the law does not prohibit the
creation of hostile work, school, or home environments based upon lack of wealth
(see Fig. 3.3). In principle, it ought to be possible to measure animalistic and mech-
anistic dehumanization and test their associations with different types of hostile
environments including those that the law prohibits and those for which the law is
silent. However, if dehumanization in a behavior setting occurs along social fault
lines that are protected under law (i.e., race, national origin, gender, religion, age, or
disability) and the dehumanization is severe and/or pervasive, then the environment
Fig. 3.2 Type of illegal hostile environment
Fig. 3.3 Type of social hostile environment
is hostile in a legally relevant sense provided that it occurs in circumstances that the
law recognizes under existing statute and case law. Figure 3.1 is graphic depiction
of our model of hostile environments due to dehumanization.
One more qualifying point is relevant to our model of hostile environments. The
law of hostile work environments requires that the conduct in question is unwel-
come. That is, disparaging comments or actions based upon an individual’s race,
national origin, gender, religion, age, or disability must be unwelcome to the re-
cipient of the action. This issue is most relevant for hostile environments due to
sexual harassment because in some environments social sexual conduct is part of
the ongoing and accepted patterns in the behavioral setting. That is, sexual comments
and flirting at work or even at home or in school occasionally may be welcome be-
cause gender is somewhat unique with regard to intergroup relations; heterosexual
men and women are intimately interdependent (Rudman and Glick 2008) and sexual
comments and flirting in work, home, or school settings may be perceived as a nor-
mal part of gendered interactions, despite the fact power and status differences often
underlie such social sexual conduct in the workplace. While it is possible that other
types of bantering based upon race, religion, or age may also be part of the accepted
behavior of a setting, it is less likely that the recipient will welcome such comments
even if they are part of the norms of the setting. Nonetheless, to prevail in any hostile
environment action, a plaintiff must demonstrate that the action was unwelcome,
often by demonstrating that the individual made a formal complaint at the time of
the abusive conduct. Our model assumes that dehumanization is unwelcome. That
is, denying an individual humanness—either UH or HN characteristics—is by defi-
nition an unwelcome action. It is difficult to imagine that anyone would welcome
another person treating her or him as if she or he was lacking in refinement, civil-
ity, self-control, maturity, or higher cognitive processes or as if she or he was inert,
cold, rigid, superficial, or fungible. In other words, one dimension of dehumanizing
conduct is that it is unwelcome. Nonetheless, legally relevant research ought to
demonstrate that the discriminatory conduct was indeed unwelcome.
Research Underlying the Psychology of Hostile

Environments
We propose that denying others UH characteristics or engaging in animalistic de-

humanization explains hostile environment judgments for some protected classes.
Most empirical research focusing on denying others UH characteristics shows that
animalistic dehumanization of out-groups (and animalistic humanization of in-
groups) is a robust phenomenon that emerges in intergroup relations, specifically
perceiving people from different races, ethnicities, or national origins (e.g., Castano
and Kofta 2009; Haslam 2006; Haslam et al. 2012, 2013; Leyens et al. 2003). For
example, Vaes et al. (2003) found that Italians attributed UH emotions to other Ital-
ians (i.e., members of the in-group) compared to North Africans (i.e., members of
an out-group). Extending this to traits, as well as other ethnicities or nationalities
(e.g., Italians vs. Slavs, Italians vs. Belgians, or Italians vs. Japanese), Vaes and
Paladino (2010; Paladino and Vaes 2009; Vaes et al. 2010; see also Viki and Calitri
2008, for comparison between Brits and Americans) also found that in-group traits
were regarded as more UH than out-group traits. Perceptions of intergroup conflict
and differences in status often contribute to these effects (Rohmann et al. 2009).
Other research has shown that animalistic dehumanization emerges for people
from other groups, including women, immigrants, and indigenous people. Applied
to the context of sexual objectification, for example, Vaes et al. (2011, see also Rud-
man and Mescher 2013; Viki and Abrams 2003) found that sexualized women were
associated more with animals (vs. humans) on single-category implicit association

tests (IATs) compared to sexualized men. Interestingly, Vaes and colleagues found
evidence that sexual attraction triggered animalistic dehumanization of sexualized
women for men, whereas social distance predicted animalistic dehumanization of
sexualized women for women. Regarding immigrants with a focus on reducing in-
tergroup conflict, Costello and Hodson (2010) found that factors related to reducing
animalistic dehumanization and perceiving animals and humans similarly predicted
greater immigrant humanization and empathy, which reduced prejudice toward im-
migrants. Similar attributions about indigenous people (Jahoda 1999; Haslam et al.
2013) showed that people were more likely to associate animal stimuli with Native
Americans in the US and Aborigines in Australia (Castano and Giner-Sorolla 2006;
Saminaden et al. 2010). Finally, these effects have also emerged cross-culturally
with people associating less humanness to out-groups compared to in-groups across
samples from countries such as Australia, China, and Italy (Bain et al. 2009, 2012;
Haslam et al. 2008; Park et al. 2012).
Consistent with the notion that animalistic dehumanization may predict hostile
environment harassment, attributing less UH emotions and traits to out-groups
compared to in-groups has meaningful policy implications. For example, Zebel
et al. (2008) found that animalistic dehumanization of out-groups reduced people’s
support for policies intended to repair harm toward the out-group caused by the
in-group. Specifically, Dutch participants’ support for the government making repa-
rations to Muslims who were killed by Dutch UN soldiers during the war in the
former Yugoslavia was negatively related to animalistic dehumanization. Regarding
animalistic dehumanization for African Americans in the USA, implicitly associat-
ing Blacks with apes contributed to more endorsement of violence against Black
suspects in the criminal justice system (Goff et al. 2008). Furthermore, news articles
written about Blacks (vs. Whites) convicted of capital crimes were more likely to
contain ape-relevant language, and when people of either race were implicitly as-
sociated with apes in the media, they were more likely to be executed by the state
(Goff et al. 2008).
Individual differences related to support for different policies also appear to
moderate animalistic dehumanization effects. For example, politically conservative
Caucasians attributed less UH attributes to Hispanics, and this animalistic dehu-
manization predicted less aid to Hispanic families suffering from a natural disaster,
compared to politically liberal Caucasians (DeLuca-McLean and Castano 2009).
More generally, animalistic dehumanization tends to elicit disgust (Harris and Fiske
2006; Haidt 2007) as well as moral disengagement (Castano and Giner-Sorolla
2006). Applied to the present framework, animalistic dehumanization of people
from protected classes determined by race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion
should explain the relation between discrimination and hostile environment judg-
ments.
Corresponding to our consideration of denying UH characteristics, we suggest
that denying others HN characteristics or engaging in mechanistic dehumanization
may explain hostile environment judgments for protected classes because of self
vs. other comparisons such as those based upon sex, age, and disability. At the very
least, people tend to humanize themselves more than they do others (Haslam et
al.2005), and a host of psychological factors including egocentrism, focalism, and
abstract construals of other people moderate these self-humanizing effects (Haslam
and Bain 2007). These effects also emerge for in-groups more generally and even
appear for undesirable, negative, HN flaws (Koval et al. 2012). This self-human-
ization bias, however, reverses with people denying themselves HN attributes when
they feel others exclude (Bastian and Haslam 2010, 2011) or control (Moller and
Deci 2010) them. Like human uniqueness denials, HN denial effects emerge cross-
culturally when researchers compared people’s reactions to robots (vs. humans) and
found they perceived robots as lacking emotion and desire-related capacities across
samples from many different countries (Bain et al. 2009, 2012; Haslam et al. 2008;
Park et al. 2012).
Regarding denying HN to people from protected classes, mechanistic dehuman-
ization has been linked to the perception of women, but not men. For example, uti-
lizing a single category IAT, Rudman and Mescher (2012) found that women were
likened to objects more than men were. That is, words describing women such as
“woman,” “female,” “she,” and “her” were implicitly associated with object words
such as “object,” “tool,” “device,” and “thing,” whereas words describing men such
as “man,” “male,” “he,” and “his” were not. Interestingly, this mechanistic dehu-
manization of women predicted self-reported rape proclivity (though animalistic
dehumanization and not mechanistic dehumanization predicted actual aggressive
behaviors).5 This finding is consistent with the more general notion that mechanistic
dehumanization predicts interpersonal violence (Moller and Deci 2010). Applied
to the present work, hostile environments related to sex discrimination, which can
involve an element of interpersonal violence (e.g., microaggressions in the work-
place), may be explained by the denial of HN. Although empirical evidence for
denying others HN is limited, there is a substantial literature on a closely related
construct—sexual objectification—which provides additional evidence that mecha-
nistic dehumanization may underlie hostile environments.
Closely related to mechanistic dehumanization, which involves denying people
HN characteristics, scholars across many disciplines have argued that people some-
times view and treat others as objects. This process is called objectification and
occurs when a person’s body parts, functions, or other characteristics are separated
from the person, reduced to the status of instruments, or regarded as capable of rep-
resenting the entire person (Bartky 1990; Fredrickson and Roberts 1997; Gruenfeld
et al. 2008; MacKinnon 1987; Nussbaum 1995, 1999). For example, economists
and philosophers have argued that in capitalism, employers objectify their employ-
ees, reducing their employees to their work qualities for their own use (Marx 1964).
To the employer, the sum of the employees corresponds to their capacity to get the
5
One possible explanation for the predictive power of animalistic dehumanization in this context
is that people who associated women with animals did so because they saw women as an out-
group. People who hold hostile sexist attitudes toward women (Glick and Fiske, 1996) likely do so
because they see sexuality not as a characteristic that differentiates the self from others but because
it differentiates an in-group (men) from an out-group (women).
job done (Gruenfeld et al. 2008). Likewise, in medicine, physicians may objectify
a patient, reducing their patients to their symptoms (Barnard 2001; Foucault 1989).
Sometimes, objectification may occur along stigmatized group membership lines.
For example, people may reduce others to their race, age, or disability attributes,
but of greatest familiarity and empirical examination, scholars have noted that both
men and women commonly reduce women to their gender attributes and sexually
objectify them in many contexts, with serious consequences (Bartky 1990; Code
1995; Fredrickson and Roberts 1997; LeMoncheck 1985; McKinley and Hyde
1996; Nussbaum 1999).
According to feminist scholars, objectification represents a fundamental issue in
the lives of women; women are often viewed and treated as men’s sexual objects
and as less than human (MacKinnon 1989, 2006; Nussbaum 1995, 1999). As dis-
cussed above, Nussbaum (1999) developed more nuanced mechanisms and along
with other feminist scholars applied these notions to sexual objectification more
specifically. Although the origins of feminist considerations are in critiques of por-
nography (Dworkin 1989; MacKinnon 1987, 1989, 2006), more recent inquiries
represent sexual objectification as a specific type of appearance-focus concentrated
on sexual body parts that also emerges during everyday interactions (Gervais et al.
2011). Representing a form of body reduction (Langton 2009), sexual objectification
emerges when people focus on women’s appearances, bodies, sexual body parts, or
sexual functions more than their faces and other non-observable attributes, such as
thoughts, feelings, and desires. When people reduce women to their appearance,
this contributes to the perceivers’ dehumanized evaluations of others. For example,
Heflick and colleagues (Heflick and Goldenberg 2009; Heflick et al. 2011) found
that when people focused on appearance of others, they regarded women (but not
men) as less competent and less warm than when they focused on others as people.
Not only do we commonly reduce people to their appearance more generally but we
also frequently reduce them to their bodies specifically (Archer et al. 1983; Langton
2009). Body-focus (e.g., presenting a woman’s body without her face) has been
associated with decreased perception of mind, less moral treatment, and less pain
attribution (Loughnan et al. 2010; see also Gray et al. 2011), as well as more ani-
malistic dehumanization (Vaes et al. 2011). Finally, people sometimes reduce others
from their appearances and entire bodies to their sexual body parts (Gervais et al.
2012a). This results in piecemeal rather than holistic processing of women (Bernard
et al. 2012, 2013; Gervais et al. 2012a), less focus on women’s faces compared to
their bodies (Gervais et al. 2012b, 2013), and perceiving women as fungible (or
interchangeable) with women with similar bodies (Gervais et al. 2012b). Sexually
objectifying behaviors resulting from this reduction of women to their sexual body
parts may result in subtle and covert microaggressions such as inappropriate sexual
innuendo, appearance comments, and objectifying gazes. These more subtle forms
of objectification may be most likely to emerge in everyday interactions in employ-
ment, education, and housing contexts. When sufficiently severe and/or pervasive,
these forms of objectification may represent hostile environments.
Objectification researchers have focused a great deal of attention on self-ob-
jectification, showing that one important consequence of sexual objectification is
that women learn to be their first surveyors (see Moradi and Huang 2008 for re-
view). That is, as a result of experiencing sexual objectification from others, women
also persistently objectify themselves (Fredrickson and Roberts 1997; McKinley
and Hyde 1996). This self-objectification has serious detrimental outcomes. When
women self-objectify, they internalize an observer’s perspective of their bodies and
regard their appearance as more important to their self-concept than their other at-
tributes (e.g., physical health, emotions, cognitions; Bartky 1990; Berger 1972; de
Beauvoir 1952; Fredrickson and Roberts 1997; McKinley 1998, 2006; McKinley
and Hyde 1996). Through sexual objectification experiences in the media and in-
terpersonal interactions, girls and women learn that it is adaptive to focus on their
appearance more than their other attributes to determine how they will be treated by
others. For example, previous research has shown that women (vs. men) consider
their observable physical appearance attributes (e.g., body measurements) as more
central to their self-concept compared to less observable physical competence char-
acteristics (e.g., strength; Noll and Fredrickson 1998) and persistently think about
how they look (McKinley and Hyde 1996). A multitude of negative consequences
are posited to result from objectification experiences through the self-objectifica-
tion process, including appearance anxiety, body surveillance, body shame, and a
diminished capacity for peak motivational states. These intermediary consequences
set the stage for psychological disorders that disproportionately affect women com-
pared to men, including unipolar depression, eating disorders, and sexual dysfunc-
tion (see Calogero et al. 2011; Moradi and Huang 2008, for reviews). As a result,
women may come to accept sexual objectification of women (Rudman and Glick
2008) so that people often integrate such detrimental conduct into the programs of
the most common behavior settings providing the stage for additional dehumaniza-
tion and the emergence of hostile environments. Furthermore, it is possible but so
far undocumented that women who do self-objectify are less likely to perceive and
complain about hostile environments due to sexual harassment.
Although psychologists have primarily focused on self-objectification for wom-
en, like objectification more generally, our behavior setting analysis suggests that
when objectification is an integral part of the behavior setting, program inhabit-
ants of the setting may endorse objectification more broadly, resulting in objecti-
fied individuals adopting other people’s perspectives of themselves (Fanon 1967;
Marx 1964). To illustrate, the worker may reduce himself to his work-related capa-
bilities, adopting the objectifying gaze of his employer. When supervisors reduce
employees to illegal characteristics (e.g., gender, race, national origin, age, disabil-
ity), employees may subsequently internalize the gaze of the employer and they
may see themselves primarily in terms of their social group.
Recent findings from our collaborative research provide evidence for use of
this framework for hostile work environment judgments. First, we focus on ana-
logue studies in which people evaluate descriptions of environments that are more
or less dehumanizing and predict hostile environment judgments. Wiener et al.
(2010), for example, showed participants two video reenactments of dehumanized
environments in two sexual harassment cases. Participants saw a video that was
based on Faragher vs. Boca Raton (1998), in which male supervisors repeatedly
subjected female lifeguards to “uninvited and offensive touching” and made lewd
remarks, speaking of women in “offensive terms.” They also saw a video based on
Rabidue vs. Osceola Refining Co. ( 1986), in which men workers made crude and
vulgar comments toward their women co-workers, downplayed the women’s abili-
ties, and displayed photographs of nude and scantily clad women in the workplace.
Wiener et al. (2010) also manipulated which case came first and the complainant’s
behavioral tone. Specifically, they varied whether the complainant was aggres-
sive (inconsistent with the female gender role), submissive (consistent with the
female gender role), or neutral. Participants provided hostile work environment
judgments (i.e., the extent to which the unwelcome sexual conduct was sufficiently
severe or pervasive to create a hostile work environment). Case order, complainant
tone, and participant gender interacted to predict hostile work environment judg-
ments. When evaluating the first case, men participants were more likely to find
the work environment to be hostile when the complainant was submissive than
when she was aggressive. Women participants were insensitive to the tone of the
complainant. If anything, the women were less sympathetic when the complainant
was submissive because they found the work environment to be more hostile than
men did, but not when the complainant was submissive. Interestingly, a different
pattern of results emerged on the second case presented in which all complainants
were neutral in tone. When evaluating the second case, men were insensitive to
the behavioral tone of the complainant from the first case as they, in fact, should
have been. The events in one case should not cross over to judgments of a second
case. These are independent events and workers should see them that way. Most
interesting, the women found the environment less hostile when the complainant
in the first case was submissive. Reinterpreted through our framework, women
expected the complainant to stand up for herself in the face of dehumanization and
when she did not, our female participants held higher expectations for the ability
of women to stand up for themselves. Thus, women workers blamed the victims
in subsequent cases for the fact that women in prior episodes did not stand up for
themselves. Women complainants may be in a double bind, with perceptions of
hostile work environments in dehumanizing situations depending on their tone and
the gender of the perceiver.
In a more recent investigation, we have used a similar analogue study and ex-
tended these considerations to age discrimination (Wiener et al. 2013). Specifically,
we presented scenarios in which an interviewer reduced an older worker to his age
attributes during a job interview, resulting in dehumanizing treatment. For example,
a younger interviewer made several references to the older worker’s age, noting
that he was surprised that someone as old as the worker could remember details
from the past and likened the older worker to his grandparents. The younger inter-
viewer made several stereotypic comments, indicating that he believed the older
worker would have difficulty with technology, would have trouble remembering
high school and college activities, and needed the assistance of bifocals to read the
interview materials. Finally, the interviewer was generally condescending, calling
the older worker “Pops” and “old guy,” smirking at the older worker, and acting
with impatience toward the older worker. The control condition was exactly the
same, except the younger interviewer did not focus on the older worker’s age, make
stereotypic comments, or treat the older worker in a condescending way.
After reading this scenario, participants predicted the degree to which the older
worker was lacking HN and UH dimensions more generally (e.g., characteristics
that are central to HN but not to objects and characteristics that humans experience
but that animals do not) as well as specific attributes (Haslam et al. 2005; Haslam
and Bain 2007). For example, “ambitious” represented both a UH and HN attribute;
“broad-minded” represented a uniquely human, but not HN attribute; “active” rep-
resented a HN, but not UH attribute; and “contented” represented neither a UH nor
HN attribute. Participants also reported the degree to which the older worker was
subjected to a hostile work environment.
Interestingly, age discrimination (vs. control) caused greater perceptions of the
older worker possessing less HN and UH dimensions and attributes as well as more
hostile work environment judgments. Most importantly and consistent with our
suggestion that mechanistic and not animalistic dehumanization should specifically
explain age discrimination, attributing to the older worker fewer HN attributes and
dimensions explained the relationship between age discrimination and hostile work
environment judgments. The denial of UH characteristics was not a mediator of the
relationship between age discrimination and judgments of a hostile work environ-
ment.
Second, we focus on studies in which we have directly manipulated mechanis-
tic dehumanization in the context of sexual objectification with analogues to job
interviews in the lab. Gervais et al. (2011) brought women and men into the lab for
a study of how people work in teams. Following a rigged scoring of a leadership
questionnaire, the participant was assigned to the role of worker, while an opposite-
gender confederate was assigned to the role of leader. Leaders were responsible
for interviewing the worker, selecting math problems, evaluating the answers, and
forwarding a final team solution. Workers were responsible for answering inter-
view questions and completing math problems. Following leader and worker as-
signments, a getting acquainted interview ensued in which Gervais et al. (2011)
manipulated objectification. In the objectification condition, the confederate gazed
from the head to waist and from waist to head in one sweeping motion when the
participant entered the room. Then the confederate proceeded to ask five questions
and before and after asking the first, third, and last question, the confederate briefly
gazed at the participant’s chest. To ensure that participants actually interpreted the
gaze as objectifying, the confederate provided written feedback following the inter-
view indicating that the participant was “looking good” and that he had selected the
problems based on the way the participant looked. The control condition was exact-
ly the same, except eye contact was maintained and participants received feedback
indicating that they were “doing good” and their problems were selected based on
their interview responses. Participants were then given 10 min to complete 12 math
problems. Consistent with the notion that being treated in a mechanistically dehu-
manizing manner may negatively impact people from protected classes, namely
women in a sexually objectifying context, women showed decreased performance
compared to men when they were objectified, and decreased performance com-
pared to women who were not objectified.
Adapting this paradigm to specifically examine hostile work environment sex-
ual harassment, Wiener et al. (2012) brought women participants into the lab to
presumably examine people’s performance on different types of jobs. Upon arriv-
ing at the lab, the participant learned that she would complete either an interesting
poster-creating task or a boring research article-sorting task. To ostensibly determine
which task they would complete, a male research assistant conducted an interview
in which he asked 10 questions of the woman participant. After asking the fourth,
seventh, ninth, and tenth questions, the participant slowly gazed at the participant’s
chest for two seconds and nodded. Following the ninth question, he asked for fur-
ther clarification and said, “That’s a really unexpected answer for a woman as good
looking as you” and ended the interviewing saying, “Okay, you’re looking good.”
The control condition was identical, except the interviewer maintained eye contact.
The male interviewer also said, “That’s a really unexpected answer” after the ninth
question and ended the interview by saying, “Okay, you’re doing good.” Following
the objectifying manipulation, the women participants completed a modified ver-
sion of the positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS-X; a mood measure), a
modified version of the math problems from Gervais et al. (2011), and measures of
hostile work environment sexual harassment (Wiener et al. 2010).
We also examined the predicted emotions, performance, and judgments of sexual
harassment from people who observed the harassment or learned about the harass-
ment after the fact. Specifically, we recorded the experiencer interactions and then
asked a separate set of women participants to watch the interactions (i.e., observers)
and a separate set of women participants to read transcripts describing the interac-
tions (i.e., predictors). These participants then predicted what emotions the woman
in the interaction might feel, predicted how she would perform on work tasks, and
made judgments of sexual harassment. They also made the emotion and sexual
harassment judgments based on self-referenced perspectives (i.e., imagining how
they would feel and evaluate sexual harassment in the interaction if they had been
the woman subjected to the social sexual conduct). Consistent with our theoretical
framework based upon an affective forecasting model, which documents that peo-
ple overestimate anticipated emotional consequences of especially negative events
(Gilbert et al. 1998) and the Asymmetric Immune Knowledge hypothesis (AIK),
which extended affective forecasting to show that people overestimated other’s
emotional reactions (Igou 2008), women who experienced objectification evaluated
the interaction as more sexually harassing than women who did not. Interestingly,
those predictors who read transcripts of the interactions evaluated the interaction
as more sexually harassing than women who actually experienced objectification.
Additionally, although experiencers showed no differences in negative emotions,
predictors expected more negative emotions in the objectification condition than the
control condition. Furthermore, self-referenced sexual harassment judgments and
forecasted negative emotion were significant mediators explaining the relation be-
tween objectification and sexual harassment judgments for predictors. Interpreted
through our current theoretical framework, the predicted negative emotions that
emerged in the objectification condition may have stemmed from the notion that
the male research assistant objectified the women in the interviews. We have also
replicated these findings, but included more severe forms of sexual objectification
(longer gazing and more negative appearance commentary) and found a similar pat-
tern of results (Gervais et al. 2013). We are also currently examining more pervasive
forms of sexual objectification (gazing from multiple sources), explicitly assessing
both animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization, and expanding the predictor con-
ditions beyond transcripts to EEOC-like interviews.
Summary and Conclusions: Implications for Law and for

Psychology
We started this paper with five basic questions: (1) What is a hostile environment?
(2) How is dehumanization related to hostile environments? (3) What are sources of
dehumanization in hostile environments? (4) When does dehumanization become a
violation of civil law? And (5) What do we know about the causes and psychologi-
cal outcomes of dehumanization? We believe our model offers potential answers
to all of these questions and this line of research has the potential to provide a nu-
anced understanding of hostile environments, those that the law does and does not
prohibit under federal statute. In doing so, this work has the potential to contribute
to our understanding of how justice contributes to conflict resolution and ultimately
to the well-being of people in a variety of behavior settings at work, at home, and
in school. In that way, our model contributes directly to the theme of this volume,
titled, Justice, Conflict and Well-being. It does so by helping us to understand what
we mean from a psycholegal perspective when we speak about hostile environ-
ments.
Hostile environments can occur at work, home, or at school because of abusive
treatment based upon unprotected factors (other vs. self, social class, education,
sexual orientation, and status/power) or factors that have at least some protection
under law (race, national origin, gender, religion, age, and disability). By law, hos-
tile environments emerge from unwelcome misconduct that results because of a
protected factor and which is sufficiently severe or pervasive to be abusive. When
dehumanization is severe or when it permeates a behavior setting’s program, so
that it becomes a pervasive part of the setting norm, the outcome is a hostile en-
vironment. Two types of dehumanization result in hostile environments. The first
type, animalistic dehumanization, is the act of denying UH characteristics, in other
words, viewing people as “animal-like.” Animalistic dehumanization frequently
distinguishes in-groups from out-groups resulting in abusive conduct and hostile
environments that can violate federal law if the dehumanization is based upon fac-
tors such as race, national origin, religion, or possibly gender. The second, mecha-
nistic dehumanization, is the act of denying people fundamental attributes of HN,
in other words viewing people as “object-like.” Mechanistic dehumanization often

distinguishes the self from the other and similarly can result in hostile environments
as a result of abusive behavior due to gender, age, and disability.
We believe that research conducted to explore the antecedents and consequences
of dehumanization can further our understanding of when and how hostile environ-
ments bring about negative consequences to the inhabitants of behavior settings.
There are at least two ways to study dehumanized hostile environments within a
social psychological framework in order to learn about the processes that create ille-
gal and socially unacceptable hostile environments and to develop an understanding
of how people determine what constitutes a hostile environment. The first involves
manipulating the descriptions of the environments to vary levels of animalistic and
mechanistic dehumanization and then measuring people’s cognitive, motivational,
emotional, and behavioral responses to the dehumanization. The second approach
is to directly manipulate types of dehumanization through objectification or some
other method of denying specific UH or HN factors and examining the effects of the
dehumanization, again on the cognitions, motivations, emotions, judgments, and
behavioral reactions of those who experience, observe, and predict the outcomes of
the manipulations.
Our joint program of research has made a start at understanding the antecedents
and consequences of dehumanization in behavior settings showing that (1) objec-
tified experiencers perceive the environment as more hostile than do control ex-
periencers, and (2) predictors (people learning about the objectification through
indirect sources) anticipate that experiencers will find objectification more hostile
than the experiencers actually find it. In fact, at low levels of sexual objectification
(i.e., mechanistic dehumanization), the “objective” experience (in a legal sense) of
hostile environments is actually more intense than is the “subjective” experience
(again in a legal sense of subjectivity). This is perhaps due to the predictors’ failure
to take into consideration the coping system of the experiencers (i.e., Igou’s AIK
effect 2008) and as a result, they over-anticipate negative affect and self-referenced
expectations (i.e., if I was objectified in this way, it would be dehumanizing). Fur-
thermore, initial findings with our experimental paradigm (Wiener et. al. 2012),
which simultaneously studies experiencers, observers, and predictors in objectified
environments, shows that pervasive mechanistic dehumanization (i.e., objectifying
gazes that permeate a behavior setting) results in similar experiencer effects and a
similar gap between experiencers, on the one hand, and observers and predictors on
the other. Finally, our efforts at manipulating descriptions of a setting in which an
older worker was applying for a job by endorsing unfounded stereotypes of older
people showed mechanistic dehumanization but not animalistic dehumanization
mediated predictors’ judgments of hostile environments. We believe that additional
research examining animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization in work settings,
school settings, and residential settings offers great promise for learning more about
hostile environments from both psychological and legal perspectives.
We invite others to join in our efforts to provide additional and more refined an-
swers to our initial questions and address other topics, such as how severe must de-
humanization become for experiencers (i.e., plaintiffs), observers (i.e., witnesses),

and predictors (i.e., jurors, EEOC workers, and judges) to detect a hostile environ-
ment? How pervasive must dehumanization become under conditions of both high
and low severity for these same actors to detect a hostile environment? What is
the effect of animalistic dehumanization both as a separate factor and in conjunc-
tion with mechanistic dehumanization? How does the law and how should the law
respond to severe and pervasive dehumanization as it tries to deter and correct the
negative consequences of hostile environments? In addition, our model raises many
other interesting psycholegal questions that researchers may approach from both
experimental and nonexperimental avenues. We believe that our psycholegal model
has a great deal to offer to assist us in gaining an understanding of hostile environ-
ments and that other similar efforts at integrating social psychology and the law can
bring additional insights to the study, prevention, and treatment of discrimination at
work, at school, and in the home.
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Chapter 4
Exploring the Dark Matter of Objectification
Thomas Lee Budesheim
Exploring the Dark Matter of Objectification
Physicists study matter ranging from electrons to galaxies, all of which they can de-
tect by the light or energy the matter emits. But in recent years, most physicists have
come to believe that the vast majority of the universe is made up of “dark matter”
that emits neither light nor energy, and hence has gone undetected and unstudied.
Similarly, social psychology has its own “dark matter” to deal with, and one that
until recently was largely unstudied. While we have spent decades studying the
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors we can readily detect, we have often overlooked
the absence of thoughts, feelings, and behavior between people. Yet the absence
of thought about another person’s mind (objectification), the absence of feeling or
empathy for another person (dehumanization), and the absence of behavioral inter-
action with another person (ostracism) are all dark matters that underlie many of the
injustices, conflicts, and threats to well-being with which human societies struggle.
The deprivation of personal and positive attention from our fellow human beings is
implicated in a number of social ills, ranging from sexual harassment to genocide,
and it is the desire to ameliorate these problems that motivate psychologists, policy-
makers, and legal scholars to understand the causes and consequences of these dark
matters in our daily lives.
Because we humans are intensely social animals that interact with each other in
many elaborate ways, our ability to survive and thrive is largely dependent upon the
quality of our relationships with others. As a result, deciding who to befriend and
who to avoid, who to trust and who to distrust is a fundamental part of our encoun-
ters with others (Cuddy et al. 2007). Nevertheless, we can also be thoughtless and
callous when dealing with others, giving little attention to those among us that we
deem unworthy of our careful attention. This thoughtlessness and callousness is at
the heart of social psychology’s longstanding efforts to understand stereotypes and
T. L. Budesheim ()
Department of Psychology, Creighton University, 2500 California Plaza, 68178 Omaha,
NE, USA
e-mail: budesh@creighton.edu

98 T. L. Budesheim
prejudice, and it is at the heart of legal efforts to combat and control various forms of
discrimination. As our understanding of these phenomena has increased, however,
there has been a proliferation of related concepts and terms used in the research lit-
erature, including objectification, dehumanization, and infra-humanization, among
others.
In this chapter, I focus on one particular “dark matter,” namely objectification.
I discuss the various definitions of objectification, both in terms of how it has been
defined conceptually by philosophers and psychologists, and in terms of how it
has been defined operationally in experimental research. I ultimately offer my own
working definition of what objectification is, and in doing so, attempt to distinguish
it from the two main pillars of social cognition, namely individuation and stereo-
typing. I also propose three different forms that objectification can take. Finally, I
discuss new avenues for moving forward in our collective investigation of objec-
tification, with a particular emphasis on the social context and the social dynamics
between the objectifying perceiver and the objectified target, which may play a
determining factor in whether or not objectification has a deleterious effect.
Philosophical Perspectives on the Definition

of Objectification
Objectification has been examined within several academic disciplines and from
a number of different perspectives (Berger 1972; Calogero 2013; Dworkin 1985;
Heldman and Wade 2011; Jeffreys 2005). However, some of the most detailed anal-
yses of objectification have come from philosophers dating as far back as Immanel
Kant (Kant et al. 1997). Recent examinations of this topic by feminist philoso-
phers have been particularly influential. Nussbaum (1995) provided perhaps the
most detailed consideration of what constitutes objectification. She argued that in
all forms of objectification, “one is treating as an object what is really not an object,
what is, in fact, a human being” (p. 257). Nussbaum identified seven aspects of
treating something as an object:
1. Instrumentality: The objectifier treats the object as a tool for his or her own
purposes.
2. Denial of Autonomy: The objectifier treats the object as lacking in autonomy and
self-determination.
3. Inertness: The objectifier treats the object as lacking in agency and perhaps also
in activity.
4. Fungibility: The objectifier treats the object as interchangeable (a) with other
objects of the same type, and/or (b) with objects of other types.
5. Violability: The objectifier treats the object as lacking in boundary integrity, as
something that it is permissible to break up, smash, break into.
6. Ownership: The objectifier treats the object as something that is owned by
another, can be bought or sold, etc.
7. Denial of subjectivity: The objectifier treats the object as something whose expe-
rience and feelings (if any) need not be taken into account.
4 Exploring the Dark Matter of Objectification 99
In contrast, feminist scholars such as Bartky (1990) had a decidedly narrower ap-
proach to objectification, asserting that objectification “occurs when a woman’s
sexual parts or functions are separated out from her person, reduced to the status
of mere instruments, or else regarded as they were capable of representing her”
(p. 35). Merging these different viewpoints, Langton (2009) has since expanded
Nussbaum’s list by adding three additional considerations:
8. Reduction to body: The treatment of a person as identified with their body, or
body parts.
9. Reduction to appearance: The treatment of a person primarily in terms of how
they look, or how they appear to the senses.
10. Silencing: The treatment of a person as if they are silent, lacking the capacity
to speak.
This lengthy list of notions as to what constitutes objectification raises the troubling
possibility that objectification is a “catch-all” term representing a nebulous concept
that is used to describe a variety of reprehensible behaviors. Philosophers them-
selves seem uneasy with the concept, such as when Papadaki (2010) argued that
while objectification “is a notion central to contemporary feminist theory… [it] has
not yet been adequately defined” (p. 16). More specifically, Papadaki believes that
Nussbaum’s (1995) conception of objectification:
… encompasses too much to be useful, and there is great uncertainty as to when to apply
this concept. People will apply the concept differently, often relying solely on their intu-
itions, and there will be much disagreement and confusion as to what really counts as
objectification. (p. 29)
Certainly, Langton’s additions only exacerbate this problem. Papadaki is by no

means the only philosopher concerned about how objectification is defined and
how the term is used. For example, Cahill (2011) noted:
Objectification per se has received surprisingly little attention by feminist thinkers.
Although often deployed, it is rarely considered directly and in depth… The number of
feminist thinkers who have employed the notion of objectification (without explicitly and
in some detail articulating its meanings)… is enormous. (p. 1)
To be fair, Nussbaum herself acknowledged that objectification is “a relatively loose

cluster-term, for whose application we sometimes treat any one of these features as
sufficient” (Nussbaum 1995, p. 258). Nevertheless, the looseness with which this
term can be applied is problematic. For example, consider the first criterion of in-
strumentality. As social animals, we rely on one another in many ways; people are
inherently useful and can serve some purpose for us in almost any context. Papadaki
(2010) articulates the crux of this problem:
Consider what would happen if every time we treated each other instrumentally, without
such treatment denying humanity in any way, we called this ‘objectification’. It would
mean that in our everyday lives we objectify nearly everyone: partners, teachers, taxi driv-
ers, waiters, plumbers, and everyone else we use as a means to achieve our ends… We use
each other, as well as ourselves, instrumentally all the time, and it seems unreasonable to
want to call all such instrumental treatment objectification. (p. 28)
100 T. L. Budesheim
Perhaps, you might think, I am unfairly dwelling on the role of instrumentality in

determining what is or is not objectification. Perhaps some other criterion is more
central to determining when objectification does or does not occur. Let us consider
a couple of other criteria, such as the denial of subjectivity (the failure to consider
the experiences or feelings of another person) and fungibility (the person is treated
as interchangeable with another person). Think back to the last time you went gro-
cery shopping. You took your cart full of food to the checkout stand where someone
scanned your items, told you the amount you owed, took your money or credit
card, and bagged your food. What was your impression of this person? Did you
give much thought as to what he or she was experiencing? Would it have mattered
to you if that person had been replaced with someone else to perform that task? In
this example, we typically regard the cashier as fungible, fail to consider their sub-
jectivity, and focus on them as instrumental to our purpose of acquiring food while
avoiding the risks associated with simply stealing it. This is not an exceptional case,
but rather is typical of many superficial interactions with other people. The concept
of objectification, and the interest we have in understanding it, would be greatly
diluted if we were to regard so much of our routine, everyday interactions as objec-
tification, while at the same time regarding more serious acts of dehumanization,
such as sexual harassment, as objectification as well.
Papadaki (2010) comes to a similar conclusion, and therefore chooses to con-
strain the concept of objectification to apply only when the treatment of others is
morally objectionable. She therefore defines objectification as follows:
Objectification is seeing and/or treating a person as an object (see and/or treating them in
one or more of these seven ways: as an instrument, inert, fungible, violable, owned, denied
autonomy, denied subjectivity, in such a way that denies this person’s humanity. A person’s
humanity is denied when it is ignored/not properly acknowledged and/or when it is in some
way harmed.
Papadaki also suggests that we refine the notion of objectification by delineating

different forms that objectification can take. She outlines four different forms of
objectification that result from two basic factors: (1) Does the objectifier intend
to deny (either by harming, ignoring, or not fully acknowledging) the objectified
individual’s humanity or is it done unintentionally? (2) Is the objectified person’s
humanity (rational capacities) harmed or diminished in some way (reductive ob-
jectification), or is it merely ignored or not fully acknowledged (non-reductive
objectification)? The combination of these factors results in four different forms
of objectification: intentional reductive objectification, intentional non-reductive
objectification, unintentional reductive objectification, and unintentional non-
reductive objectification. The first form is clearly the most morally reprehensible
while the last form of objectification is the least reprehensible.
Papadaki emphasizes the distinction between intentional and unintentional forms
of objectification, in part, because it influences which strategies may be most effec-
tive in correcting the problem. She also suggests that unintentional objectification
may be far more common than people realize, and that both women and men are
prone to this form of objectification.
From this brief and selective review of how philosophers conceptualize objec-
tification, it is clear that no general consensus has emerged and that the concept
of objectification continues to be debated and refined. Nevertheless, psychologists
are already hard at work studying objectification, and a variety of perspectives on
objectification have emerged.
Psychological Perspectives on the Definition

of Objectification
Objectification Theory and Self-Objectification
Objectification was largely neglected as a topic of psychological investigation

throughout most of the twentieth century. A dramatic shift occurred following the
publication of the seminal work by Fredrickson and Roberts (1997), entitled “Ob-
jectification Theory: Toward Understanding Women’s Lived Experiences and Men-
tal Health Risks.” This work inspired a tidal wave of research, as indicated by the
fact that their article had been cited in the PsycINFO database over 600 times as of
the time this chapter was written. However, if the reader is a relative newcomer to
this area of research, do not be fooled by the title of their article. Far from providing
an overarching theory of objectification in general or resolving the philosophers’
debate over how objectification should be defined, their theory is more narrowly fo-
cused on the resulting negative consequences sexual objectification has for women.
As they put it:
Distinct from attempts to uncover why objectification occurs, objectification theory takes
as a given that women exist in a culture in which their bodies are—for whatever reasons—
looked at, evaluated, and always potentially objectified. The theory limits its aim to illu-
minating the psychological and experiential consequences that sexual objectification might
have in many women’s lives. (Fredrickson and Roberts 1997, p. 177)
Fredrickson and Roberts accept as given that there exists in American culture (and in
other societies as well) a high degree of sexual objectification of women. They, like
Bartky (1990) and Langton (2009), emphasize body focus as the defining feature
of objectification, stating that “when objectified, women are treated as bodies—and
in particular, as bodies that exist for the use and pleasure of others” (p. 175). They
argue that sexual objectification occurs in three general ways. First, women are
objectified in face-to-face social encounters, with women’s bodies being the tar-
get of men’s “objectifying gaze” and, in many instances, accompanied by explicit
commentary. Second, the media socialize and perpetuate this sexual objectification
by repeatedly highlighting objectifying social interactions in films, advertisements,
and other visual media where men are depicted as focused on women’s bodies.
Third, the visual media often “spotlight” women’s bodies and body parts such that
the viewer is automatically put in the position of having an objectifying gaze upon
the women depicted.
102 T. L. Budesheim
Without explicitly stating so, Fredrickson and Roberts conceptualize objectifica-

tion as an active process, as something that a perceiver (e.g., a man) does to the tar-
get (e.g., a woman), presumably in such a way that (a) the target becomes aware of
this objectification (e.g., through a leering gaze accompanied by whistling, catcalls,
or other explicit commentary), and/or (b) it has a demonstrable effect on the target
by altering the perceiver’s behavior toward the target or judgments of the target.
The presumption about this objectifying encounter is that the perceiver’s attention
to the target’s body is (a) excessive or in some other way inappropriate relative to
the amount of attention paid to other qualities of the person, (b) unwelcome by the
target of that attention, and (c) damaging to the target’s psychological state of mind
and/or disruptive to the target’s ongoing behavior.
This latter point is the focus of Fredrickson and Roberts’ research and that of
many other researchers their work has influenced. Women’s frequent experiences as
the target of objectification can lead them to engage in self-objectification, which in
turn can lead to a variety of psychological difficulties, such as body shame, anxiety,
depression, and disordered eating behavior (for a review, see Calogero et al. 2011).
Self-objectification is conceptualized as an individual-difference variable that re-
flects to what extent a woman has internalized society’s obsession with women’s
physical beauty and sexual attractiveness.
Studies of self-objectification have relied heavily on two self-report measures:
the Objectified Body Consciousness Scale (OBCS) developed by McKinley and
Hyde (1996), and the Self-Objectification Questionnaire (SOQ) developed by Noll
and Fredrickson (1998). The SOQ asks individuals to rank ten body attributes from
most important to least important to their physical self-concept. Five of the attri-
butes are regarded as observable appearance-based attributes (i.e., physical attrac-
tiveness, physical measurements, weight, sex appeal, firm/sculpted muscles). The
other five attributes are less directly observable and are regarded as physical com-
petence-based attributes (i.e., strength, coordination, fitness level, energy level, and
health). Ranking the appearance-based attributes more highly presumably indicates
a greater concern with how one appears to others as more important than one’s own
sense of physical well-being. Similarly, the OBCS asks women to indicate their
level of agreement or disagreement along a 7-point scale to 24 items that measure
(a) self-surveillance (e.g., “I often worry about whether the clothes I am wearing
make me look good”), body shame (e.g., “When I am not the size I think I should
be, I feel ashamed”), and (c) control beliefs (e.g., “I think a person can look pretty
much how they want to if they are willing to work at it”).
In addition to being regarded as a stable individual difference variable, self-
objectification can also be treated as a state that can be manipulated by situational
factors. In the laboratory, state self-objectification has been manipulated in a number
of ways, including (a) having women try on either a swimsuit or a sweater in front of
a full-length mirror (Fredrickson et al. 1998), (b) exposing women to media images
featuring thin, sexualized images of other women’s bodies such as Victoria Secret
ads (Harper and Tiggemann 2008), (c) priming words related to objectified bodies,
such as sexiness or thinness (Roberts and Gettman 2004), and (d) giving women the
mere anticipation of having a face-to-face interaction with a man (Calogero 2004).
Ironically, despite the fact that objectification is prototypically described as

something that men “do” to women, none of these manipulations directly involve
men doing anything. In fact, the closest men come to being involved in these studies
is when women were threatened with the possibility of actually having to interact
with a man. Simply put, the studies on self-objectification tell us very little about
objectification itself. In actual interactions between men and women, what consti-
tutes objectification? Does a glance at someone’s physique constitute objectifica-
tion? How do we know when objectification has or has not occurred? Is objecti-
fication “in the eye of the beholder” or is it “in the eye of the beholden?” How is
objectification harmful? When is it harmful and when is it not harmful? We are far
from answering these questions, but the next set of studies I will review brings us
closer to at least addressing these questions.
Experimental Studies of Sexual Objectification
There are two main types of experimental investigations of sexual objectification.

In the first type, participants are experimentally put in the role of the objectifier,
either by (a) manipulating how the target person is depicted, and thereby manipulat-
ing the participants’ attentional focus and thought process, or (b) directly instructing
the participants to focus their attention on the target in different ways and thereby
manipulating their thought process. The second and most recent form of experimen-
tal investigation of sexual objectification is to expose the participants to instances of
objectification performed by a confederate of the experimenter, and then assess the
impact of this objectification on the participants.
Participants as Objectifiers This line of research is fundamentally concerned with
how focusing on a target person’s body or appearance alters one’s judgments of,
and behaviors toward, the target. In a classic example of this form of objectification
research, Gurung and Chrouser (2007) randomly assigned participants to (a) view
photographs of women athletes depicted in either their normal sports attire or
(b) view these same women provocatively dressed in minimal clothing. After view-
ing the pictures, participants made a series of judgments about the targets related to
(a) objectification (attractiveness, sexually experienced, desirable), (b) capabilities
(strength, determination, capability), and (c) personal characteristics (self-respect,
intelligent, feminine). Consistent with their expectations, provocatively dressed
targets were rated as more attractive, more sexually experienced, more desirable,
and more feminine than athletically dressed targets. Furthermore, the provocatively
dressed women were judged as lower in strength, determination, capability, intel-
ligence, and self-respect than when they were athletically dressed.
Gurung and Chrouser (2007) concluded that the provocative clothing increased
objectification, as indicated by the decreased perceptions of their personal capabili-
ties and higher ratings of their physical attributes. In other words, the participants
“objectified” the provocatively dressed women. But as one ponders over the na-
ture of objectification and how it takes place, one might wonder where exactly did
104 T. L. Budesheim
“objectification” occur in this study? One could argue that the objectification took
place well before the participants made their judgments. After all, the researchers
selected these pictures for presentation to the participants. Like the objectifying
media that Fredrickson and Roberts (1997) and other social critics have commented
upon, the act of depicting the women in this fashion is regarded as objectifying. One
might even say that the women athletes themselves did the objectifying, because
they allowed themselves to be photographed in this provocative fashion.
It is neither clear that Gurung and Chrouser’s (2007) results nor other studies
like it (Johnson and Gurung 2011), tell us much about the process of objectification,
which they described as follows: “when objectified, a women’s body, or parts of
her body, are separated from other personal characteristics” (p. 91). By providing
participants only with pictures of each woman’s body, and in some cases, stripping
the women of most of their outer clothing, which might have provided some useful
clues about them, the “separation from other personal characteristics” was argu-
ably done for the participants already. Considering the fact that participants were
asked to form an impression of these women under informationally impoverished
circumstances, such that all they learned about each target was conveyed through a
photograph of either a provocatively (un)dressed woman or an athletically dressed
woman, I think participants’ assumptions about these women were reasonable and
represent their best efforts under the circumstances. A provocative photograph of
a scantily clad woman does covey more information about the woman’s physical
beauty and her sexual desirability than it does about her intelligence or capabil-
ity, and consequently participants rated these women more strongly in these areas.
Likewise, a photograph of a woman engaged in an athletic competition does con-
vey more information about her strength and determination than it does about her
physical attractiveness and desirability, and consequently participants rated these
women more strongly in those areas. In fact, both sets of images might have evoked
different stereotypic subtypes of women that differ in their evaluative implications.
This possibility raises the question of whether or not “objectification” is just a form
of stereotyping of women based on appearance. Hence, what was intended as a
straightforward attempt to experimentally demonstrate objectification may have
demonstrated instead that different appearances evoke different stereotypes, which
in turn result in different judgments of the target.
Heflick and Goldenberg (2009) also placed participants in the role of the objecti-
fier and examined how this objectification affected their judgments of the target. At
the outset, they provide what has become the almost obligatory definition, which
is that “objectification refers to construing an individual as an object” (p. 599), but
they do not clarify what the precise nature of this construal process is. They simply
note that “by virtue of this, targets of objectification are likely to be perceived as
less fully human” (p. 599). Contrary to Gurung and Chrouser’s (2007) methodolo-
gy, Heflick and Goldenberg did not provide images of their targets (Sarah Palin and
Angelina Jolie) but rather manipulated the participants’ focus when thinking about
these familiar targets. This approach has the decided advantage of more closely
simulating how objectification might happen in everyday life. For example, a man
might encounter a woman and choose to focus on her body, whereas another man
might simultaneously encounter the same woman but choose to think about what
the woman was doing and what she was thinking. The woman has the same presen-
tation to both men, but the first man would be described as objectifying her, while
the second man would not. In their experimental conditions, Heflick and Golden-
berg asked participants to write about either Sarah Palin or Angelina Jolie, focusing
on their thoughts and feelings about this person’s appearance. In the control condi-
tions, they asked participants to write about either Sarah Palin or Angelina Jolie,
focusing on their thoughts and feelings about this person.
On average, participants rated the women as significantly less competent when
their focus was on the women’s appearances than when their focus was on the wom-
en as persons. While this difference was small (a mean difference of half a point on
a 7-point scale), it nevertheless indicates that focusing on appearances (presumably
to the exclusion of other information available about a person) can have a detectable
negative effect on judgments of a target person. But what exactly did the appear-
ance-focus manipulation do in the Heflick and Goldenberg (2009) study to result
in less positive judgments of the targets? One possibility is that it primed a subset
of the known information about the target person, creating a different informational
basis for making subsequent judgments of the target. The appearance focus manipu-
lation may have led participants to activate in memory more superficial information
about the target (magazine photos, depictions on TV, etc.), thereby making that
information relatively more accessible than information about the target’s actions,
expressed attitudes, and goals, etc. The result, not surprisingly, would be that the
judgments of the target would be subtly influenced by what information was more
accessible about the target. Another possibility is that the appearance focus served
to activate gender stereotypes of these women as less competent (Eagly et al. 1991).
Heflick, Goldenberg, Cooper, and Puvia (2011) attempted to address some of the
alternative explanations that arose for the Heflick and Goldenberg (2009) results.
For example, they specifically tackled the notion that the effects of appearance fo-
cus on judgments of women’s competence may have been due to the activation
of gender stereotypes rather than due to objectification and dehumanization. They
asked participants to focus either on a person’s appearance during a brief video
clip or on the person’s performance during the same video clip. In some condi-
tions, the person in the video was a man (news anchorman Brian Williams, or an
unknown male weather forecaster) and in other conditions, the person was a woman
(morning newsperson Robin Meade, or an unknown female weather forecaster).
They reasoned that if appearance focus on women activated the gender stereotype
of women, the women would be rated as warmer, but less competent. On the other
hand, if objectification and not stereotype activation was created by the appearance
focus, then women would be rated lower in both warmth and competence. In fact,
across three different studies, Heflick et al. (2011) found that appearance focus con-
sistently lowered perceptions of a woman’s competence, warmth, and morality, but
that appearance focus did not result in significant changes in the judgments of men.
Their conclusion was that appearance focus resulted in the objectification of women
but did not result in the objectification of men.
106 T. L. Budesheim
While there is much to commend about these studies, there is a conceptual slip-
periness here that I find troubling and which I have pointed out in a previous com-
mentary on this work (Budesheim 2011). It is unclear if objectification is opera-
tionally defined as the focus on a person’s appearance or whether it is operation-
ally defined as the resulting decrease in the evaluations of the person’s personal
qualities. Or perhaps, it is some combination of the two, which is hinted at by the
authors’ statement that “objectification should occur for any person whose worth is
strongly or solely linked to their appearance” (Heflick et al. 2011, p. 580). This way
of defining objectification is problematic, as it opens the door to circular reasoning,
in which objectification is viewed as both cause and effect. Consider the following
two ways that someone might describe Heflick et al.’s (2011) results: (1) “Focusing
on Sarah’s appearance caused her to be objectified. We know that she was objecti-
fied (and that the men were not) because she was judged as lower in competence,
warmth, and morality (and the men were not).” This view portrays objectification
as the effect of appearance focus. (2) “Sarah’s worth/humanness was diminished
because she was objectified. We know that the manipulation of appearance focus
caused them to judge her as lower in competence, warmth, and morality.” This view
equates objectification with appearance focus, and thus portrays objectification as
the cause of the diminished judgments. Logically, objectification cannot be both
cause and effect. Yet the research literature in this area is typically ambiguous, leav-
ing unresolved which view of objectification is preferable. It is as if objectification
researchers currently are stuck viewing objectification as not exclusively cause or
effect, but rather “objectification = appearance focus + reduced perceptions of per-
sonal qualities.” This formulation is agnostic with regard to why appearance focus
sometimes is associated with lowered perceptions of personal qualities (e.g., when
judging women) and sometimes not (e.g., when judging men). It simply labels the
co-occurrence of these events as “objectification.” A deeper understanding of the
phenomenon of objectification, however, demands that we try to uncover why or
how these effects occur. If appearance focus, in and of itself, is insufficient to re-
duce perceptions of personal qualities, then what other factors are involved?
What is needed is a more detailed understanding of the cognitive processes that
underlie appearance focus and how these processes may differ when that focus is on
women than when that focus is on men. Fortunately, some recent research by Sarah
Gervais and her colleagues has begun to do just that (Bernard et al. 2012; Gervais
2012a, b). The proverbial “elephant in the room” that objectification researchers
have tip-toed around is the question “What is meant by ‘viewing sexualized women
as objects’?” (Bernard et al. 2012, p. 469). Using work in cognitive psychology that
identifies configural processing (perceiving the relations of the constituent parts of
a stimulus and the resulting configurations) as a prominent part of person recogni-
tion, in contrast to analytic processing (perceiving the constituent parts of a stimulus
but not their configural relationships), they employed a method that can test which
type of processing is taking place. Specifically, the inversion effect, which occurs
when inverted stimuli are harder to recognize than upright stimuli is specifically
associated with configural processing and is particularly prominent in face recogni-
tion (Maurer et al. 2002; Yin 1969). Male and female participants were briefly pre-
sented with a mixture of inverted and upright photographs of sexualized men and
women (i.e., just wearing swimsuits or underwear), with each photograph flashed
onto the screen for 250 ms followed by a blank screen presented for 1-s. After each
presentation, the participants were given a recognition test in which two images
were presented (the actual image and a left-right mirror image) and asked which one
they had seen. Only the inverted sexualized images of men resulted in significantly
lower recognition memory, whereas the inverted sexualized images of women did
not. This result would seem to indicate that the sexualized images of women, in
contrast to those of men, engaged more analytical and less configural processing,
which is consistent with viewing the women in a more object-like fashion.
Research examining the cognitive processes underlying objectification, such as
that done by Bernard et al. (2012), represents an important step in the right di-
rection, but more work remains. In order to advance a deeper understanding of
objectification, we should utilize a multi-method approach that incorporates some
of the more sophisticated tools available to us. For example, future research might
employ eye-tracking technology to reveal how men are viewed versus how women
are viewed. For example, despite the fact that Bernard et al. (2012) displayed both
male and female stimuli in a sexualized manner, it is possible that participants still
focused on men’s faces to a greater extent than on women’s faces, which is to say
that they focused more on the women’s bodies than on the men’s bodies. This differ-
ence might account for why configural processing was engaged to a greater extent
with male stimuli than with female stimuli, even though both were displayed in a
sexualized manner. Research indicates men’s faces are often displayed in a more
prominent fashion in the media, whereas women are more likely to be displayed
as a full body (Archer et al. 1983; Konrath and Schwarz 2007; Schwarz and Kurz
1989). Perhaps as a result of this “face-ism” bias, we habitually pay more attention
to men’s faces than to women’s faces, and this cognitive habit carries over into
situations where there is an option of focusing on the body or focusing on the face.
Participants as the Target of Objectification As noted earlier, there is consider-
able work on how state self-objectification can be created, but there is generally no
actual interaction with an objectifier, and hence almost no empirical investigation
of being the target of another person’s “objectifying gaze.” A notable exception
is the recent work by Gervais et al. (2011; Wiener et al. 2013). They randomly
assigned male and female participants to experience either no objectifying gaze or
a brief series of objectifying gazes from a confederate of the opposite sex during a
brief interview. In the objectifying gaze conditions, the confederate would look at
the participant as they walked in for the interview, visually scanning down to their
waist and then back up to their face. In addition, each confederate was trained to
gaze at the participant’s chest for a couple of seconds at three different points during
the interview, and immediately after the interview to make verbal comments that
reinforced this visual focus (e.g., “From the looks of you, I thought you would do
these problems best”).
Gervais et al. found that the objectifying gaze adversely affected women’s subse-
quent performance on a math test, but did not affect men’s performance. Surprising-
ly, those female participants who had been objectified expressed greater motivation
108 T. L. Budesheim
to interact with the interviewer in future situations. Further, no significant differ-

ences were observed in women’s body shame, body surveillance, or body dissatis-
faction as a result of the objectifying gaze manipulation. By operationally defining
objectification as the manipulated exposure to an interviewer’s objectifying gaze
(and comments), these researchers avoid the definitional ambiguity of whether ob-
jectification is to be regarded as the cause or the effect in the study. Clearly, the
objectifying gaze was the causal factor in this study, and interestingly, it did not
have ubiquitously negative consequences, suggesting that there is “more than meets
the eye” to objectification.
Expanding the Concept of Objectification
Moradi (2011) has reviewed the theory and research on objectification and suggest-
ed possible avenues for extending this work. In doing so, she raised the question,
“What is a non-sexually objectifying environment, and where do such environments
exist?” (p. 158). Moradi’s question acknowledges the possibility that sexually ob-
jectifying environments are just one form of objectifying environment. Similarly,
Calogero (2011) noted that an extension of objectification theory and research “to
other social domains beyond the sexual arena… is timely and imperative” (p. 42).
Stereotyping, Mind Perception, and Objectification
Objectification is of interest to social psychologists and relevant to the mainstream

theories of social perception, though it has not been explicitly incorporated into
their models. For example, in their stereotype content model (SCM), Susan Fiske,
Amy Cuddy, Peter Glick, and their colleagues (Cuddy et al. 2007, 2008, 2009; Fiske
et al. 1999, 2002; Fiske 2011) make the case that what we think and feel about oth-
ers, and how we behave toward them, is largely shaped by two fundamental judg-
ments: the first is warmth (“Is the person friend or foe?”) and the second is com-
petence (“Does this person have the ability to help me or hurt me?”). We typically
judge our in-groups as high in both warmth and competence, whereas we judge our
most despised out-groups as low in both warmth and competence. Groups that are
judged low in both warmth and competence (e.g., the homeless) are frequently the
targets of active harm (e.g., abusive treatment) and passive harm (e.g., neglect and
ostracism). Such scorned groups are likely to incur more unjust treatment and expe-
rience deeper suffering than others in a society. And yet scorn is often overlooked,
because, as Fiske (2011) astutely observed, “we are often unaware… of scorning
others; precisely because scorn is thoughtless, it does not bother us” (p. 15). Scorn
often takes the form of turning our backs on others, physically and mentally. Simply
put, we do not give scorned individuals a second thought.
Our lack of thought about those we scorn is a form of objectification. Nussbaum

(1995) called this the denial of subjectivity. Objects are treated as if they have no
feelings or experiences that we should pause to consider. For example, I do not re-
flect on what my chair is feeling when I sit on it, or what it might think as I leave it
each evening to spend the night alone in the dark until I return the following morn-
ing. It is a chair, and it never has occurred to me (until this moment) to wonder about
its thoughts or feelings. But when the “object” is a person that we know can think
and feel at some level, and yet we fail to consider their thoughts and feelings, then
this is objectification in its purest and simplest form.
To think about the thoughts and feelings of another person is referred to as mind
perception. Intriguing work on mind perception indicates that perceivers are likely
to think about the contents of another’s mind when (a) they have a desire for social
connection with that person, and/or (b) are motivated to understand, predict, or even
control the other person’s behavior (Waytz et al. 2010). Both of these motivations
are often lacking when interacting with strangers, but particularly so if they are
viewed as having little or nothing to offer with regard to warmth or competence.
Waytz et al. (2010) assert that mind perception is key to the moral status of the indi-
vidual. When people are thought of as incompetent and incapable of rationality and
civility, then their freedoms are restricted and they must be confined or constrained.
When one regards a person, or group of persons, as lacking in warmth and human
kindness, then they are to be either avoided or attacked. Those individuals unlucky
enough to be regarded in this way are often vulnerable to having their liberties and
their equal rights in the society stripped from them.
Social neuroscience provides even further evidence that we think about these
individuals in fundamentally different ways. Neuroimaging research has deter-
mined that the medial prefrontal cortex is particularly active when one engages in
person perception rather than object perception (Mason and Macrae 2004). With
this result in mind, Harris and Fiske (2006) conducted a functional magnetic reso-
nance imaging study in which participants viewed 48 photographs of individuals
representing groups in each of the four combinations of (a) low or high warmth,
and (b) low or high competence. They found that pictures of people who fell into
the low warmth—low competence quadrant elicited significantly less activation of
the medial prefrontal cortex. That is, perceivers viewing a person from the low
warmth—low competence quadrant had significantly less of the neural activity as-
sociated with forming impressions of a person, and thus neurologically appeared as
if they were forming an impression of an object.
One of the particular benefits of using such an approach for the study of ob-
jectification and dehumanization is that it does not rely on self-reports, which are
subject to biased responding. In addition, the low-tech self-report approach to ob-
jectification research suffers from a particularly ironic flaw. Consider studies in
which participants are in the role of a perceiver who objectifies the target. If the
experimental task elicits objectification, participants will have formed little to no
impression of the target person’s inner qualities, but rather will regard the person in
a much more superficial way (e.g., as a useful tool, as a pleasing body, or as an un-
pleasant object to be avoided). But having elicited this objectification of the target,
110 T. L. Budesheim
researchers typically then ask the participants to judge the objectified target on the
very same trait scales that they would use in most studies of individuated person
impressions. In other words, after actively discouraging participants from forming
a detailed impression through one’s manipulations, or after presenting participants
with a target person to whom they are averse to giving much thought, the experi-
menter then asks the participants to make a series of judgments that demands that
they form an impression of the target individual’s inner qualities on the spot.
The commonly used tools of the trade for impression formation research, such
as self-report scales for trait judgments, in and of themselves, are ill-suited for ad-
equately identifying and measuring objectification. They are a heuristic measure
used when other more sophisticated measures are unavailable. I refer to them as
a heuristic measure, because, like other heuristics (e.g., the availability heuristic),
they are susceptible to the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent (If A, then B.
B occurs. Therefore A.). We start with the premise that objectification causes people
to judge others as less warm and less competent (if A, then B). If our measures
indicate that a person was judged less warm and less competent (B occurs), we as-
sume that objectification was the cause (therefore, A). The causal process is inferred
from the outcome without sufficient regard to the possibility that the same outcome
could have arisen from a variety of different processes other than objectification.
Social neuroscience provides one exciting new way to explore these questions. In
addition, eye-tracking technology, reaction time tasks, and a variety of other more
sophisticated tools need to be employed that more directly measure the processes
underlying objectification.
Power and Objectification
Another productive avenue of research in this area concerns the role that power
can play in objectification. A variety of research suggests that those with power
pay less attention to the relatively powerless or regard them in a more stereotypical
fashion (Barreto et al. 2010; Dépret and Fiske 1999; Fiske 1993; Russell and Fiske
2010). Goodwin, Gubin, Fiske, and Yzerbyt (2000), for example, found that power-
ful perceivers shift their attention to stereotype-consistent information and pay less
attention to specific traits of the target person. Similarly, Galinsky, Magee, Inesi,
and Gruenfeld (2006) found that individuals made to feel more powerful were less
likely to take into account other people’s perspectives. Power may create a greater
focus on one’s own goals, which in turn results in less attention to the feelings, ex-
periences, and points of view of those around us. Having power promotes using less
powerful others to serve one’s own goals while neglecting to consider their subjec-
tive experiences (Chen et al. 2001; Overbeck and Park 2006).
Gruenfeld, Inesi, Magee, and Galinsky (2008) assert that, of the seven charac-
teristic features of objectification that Nussbaum (1995) identified, the most essen-
tial element is instrumentality. In short, objectification is best described as viewing
people and interacting with people in a manner that primarily regards them as a tool
for satisfying one’s own goals. Gruenfeld and her colleagues go on to point out that
“the notion of instrumentality helps to distinguish objectification from other, related
constructs, such as dehumanization and stereotyping, both of which tend to be as-
sociated with negative appraisals and a desire to distance oneself from the target”
(Gruenfeld et al., p. 112).
This latter point raises a difficult issue. What exactly is the difference between
stereotyping, objectification, and dehumanization? In this next section, I provide a
possible answer to that question.
In Search of a Synthesis
Although the exploration of objectification has taken place on many fronts, rang-
ing from feminist philosophy to social neuroscience, a common assumption across
these perspectives is that objectification involves a certain way of thinking about
another person. The research and theorizing about sexual objectification and self-
objectification has emphasized our obsessive attention to the body as the defining
feature of objectification. Research and theorizing about mind perception, on the
other hand, has emphasized the absence of thinking about another person’s mind
(denial of subjectivity) as the defining feature of objectification. And research and
theorizing about power has emphasized instrumentality (thinking about the person
as a tool for furthering our own ends) as the defining feature of objectification. These
are not mutually exclusive ways of thinking, and in fact, are likely to operate in
concert. For example, if I was focused on my own goals, I might regard someone in
terms of their instrumentality and minimize thoughts of their mental life. As a result,
I might be unlikely to attend to their facial expressions, or look them in the eye at all,
as I do not feel the need to look for clues as to what they are thinking and feeling. To
the extent that I might focus on their physical form at all, it would be more for my
own pleasure, or for making more basic assessments about the person’s usefulness
(e.g., “Do they appear physically capable of doing what I need them to do?”).
One way to try to define what objectification is, is to determine what objecti-
fication is not. How does objectification differ from other ways of thinking about
persons? The classic dual processing theories of person perception (Brewer 1988;
Fiske and Neuberg 1990) contrast category-based processing (i.e., stereotyping)
with piecemeal or attribute-based processing (i.e., individuation). Objectification
bears some similarities to stereotyping, in that it does not involve careful consider-
ation of all individual qualities. Both the “body focus” view of objectification and
the “denial of subjectivity” view of objectification would suggest that relatively
little thought is given to the person’s inner mental life and qualities: the target’s feel-
ings, traits, attitudes, and goals are irrelevant to the perceiver. However, category-
based processing (stereotyping) is not equivalent to forming little or no impression
of a target’s inner qualities. Rather, stereotyping means the basis for an impression
comes from one’s prior knowledge or expectations about the category of people to
which the target is assumed to belong.
112 T. L. Budesheim
Fig. 4.1 Impression formation process active as a function of mind perception, consideration of
instrumentality, and focus of attention
The dual-processing view argues that forming impressions can occur via two
routes. Individuation is the route that requires effortful information gathering and
the construction of an impression that is tailor-fit to the unique qualities of the
individual target. Stereotyping, on the other hand, is the route in which little to no
new information is gathered, but rather one “pulls off the rack” a previously formed
impression based on the category or categories in which the target is judged to fit.
This is a one-size-fits-all approach that minimizes the work involved in forming an
impression of the target individual.
Objectification is different from both individuation and stereotyping, in that it
represents (at least in its purest form) the absence of any personal impression of
the individual’s inner qualities. If one were to adapt the Fiske and Neuberg (1990)
continuum model to include objectification, objectification would be the true po-
lar opposite of individuation, with stereotyping falling somewhere in between (see
Fig. 4.1). There are no sharp lines dividing objectification and stereotyping, just as
there are no sharp lines dividing stereotyping from individuation. Nevertheless, it
might help to think of these as three distinct processes in the impression formation
process. We can at times engage in any of these three ways of thinking about people,
and we may vacillate between these three modes relatively quickly. Like a recipe
for a meal, the impressions we cook up will differ, depending on how much of these
various ingredients we add. How much of our impression of a person was based on
their individual attributes? How much of it was based on category-based assump-
tions? And how much of it was based on judging the person’s utility for our own
goals? Each impression we form of another human being may reflect some combi-
nation of these three ingredients.
Consider your last encounter with the cashier at the grocery store again. If you
were rushed, thinking about the dinner you needed to cook, or distracted by your
child’s insistent pleas for a candy bar conveniently displayed at their eye level, I
doubt your impression of the cashier went much beyond the automatic registra-
tion of their gender, age, race, and general physical appearance. And even though
certain category-based information was automatically activated in your mind,
you may have given no effort to stitch that information together in your working
memory and actively form and store an impression of him or her. If you formed
an impression, it may well have narrowly focused on the speed and efficiency
with which the cashier could scan your items and bag your groceries. Whatever
“impression” you had, it likely dissolved away as your short-term memory of
the encounter faded. Now consider how much of our lives are filled with such
superficial encounters, many of them even less meaningful than the one you had
with the cashier. In urban environments, people encounter countless strangers,
forming almost no impression at all. Such is the “dark matter” that fills much of
our social lives.
An intriguing look into the routine nature of our daily social contact with others
comes from a series of studies by Simons and colleagues (Levin et al. 2002; Simons
and Levin 1998). In these studies, they arranged for a brief conversation between
two people, one of them being a confederate of the experimenter, and the other
being an unwitting participant. The key element of their studies was that they clev-
erly switched the confederate with whom the participant was talking in the middle
of their conversation. In one situation, the confederate stopped a person walking
across campus and asked for directions. While they were talking, two workers (also
confederates) who were carrying a door walked between the participant and the
confederate. While the door passed between them, the conversation partner was
surreptitiously switched with one of the workers carrying the door. Only 50 % of the
participants noticed the switch. In another version of this study, participants arrived
at a counter to receive instructions for where to go to participate in a research study.
During the brief conversation, the confederate reached down to get a consent form
from under the counter, but it was a different confederate who popped up with the
form and continued with the directions. Only 25 % of the participants noticed the
switch. It is noteworthy that these researchers originally studied this phenomenon
of change blindness for objects in a scene and then extended this work to human
interactions. Without intending to do so, they provided an excellent example of
how, at least some of the time, we think about others as superficially as we think
about objects, even to the point that those others are unconsciously interchangeable
(i.e., fungible).
114 T. L. Budesheim
If objectification is a common social experience, as suggested by the scenarios

and research studies I have just described, how are we to reconcile this with the
view of objectification as a harmful, even dehumanizing experience, as so much
of the research on sexual objectification would indicate? Nussbaum (1995), Cahill
(2011), and others have argued that objectification need not always be the devastat-
ing insult to one’s humanity that some scholars portray it to be. It can occur in rather
benign and even positive forms.
Should the concept of objectification be applied to extreme events such as de-
humanization, as well as to the mundane and mindless interactions of everyday
social life? Papadaki (2010) explicitly constrained the concept to those encounters
with negative dehumanizing results, thereby declassifying the other “objectifying”
events as objectification. I am not comfortable with this approach for three rea-
sons. First, Papadaki’s recommendation requires defining objectification in terms
of certain ways of treating or viewing others (i.e., a process) that result in a nega-
tive and dehumanizing judgment of them (i.e., an outcome). Thus, by limiting the
definition of objectification in this way, she potentially treats objectification as both
cause (process) and effect (outcome). Second, the benign and malevolent forms of
objectification appear to be close cousins conceptually, and artificially tossing some
forms of objectification aside because they pose difficulties for our theories is sci-
entifically suspect. Third, the benign and malevolent forms of objectification may
interact or have carry-over effects from one to the other. For example, a malevolent
form of objectification (e.g., sexual harassment) may have a more detrimental im-
pact in an environment in which benign forms of objectification are absent. That
is to say, the more one has experienced benign forms of objectification, the more
psychologically immunized one may be to the more malevolent forms of objecti-
fication. Another possibility may be that the frequency with which one engages in
benign forms of objectification may increase the likelihood of engaging in more
malevolent forms of objectification, perhaps as a result of procedural priming (e.g.,
Förster et al. 2009; Neumann 2000). Though these conjectures are purely specula-
tive at this point, including the full range of objectification in our conceptualizations
and theories allows us to empirically examine these possibilities.
Nevertheless, as a single unitary construct, objectification may have too much
weight to bear. The use of the same term for such a diversity of events may reflect
our discipline’s lack of conceptual development and clarity in this area. As we move
forward, the terms and concepts we use need to help articulate and explain the dif-
ferences we identify as important. Recall that Papadaki (2010) suggested that we
delineate different forms of objectification, and it is this suggestion that I will take
up next. My own conceptual framework for objectification, which I offer here, is
far from some “grand theory” of objectification. Instead, I offer it as an opening
volley, which I hope others will take up and return, with critiques and refinements
of their own.
I propose three broad categories of objectification (see Fig. 4.2) which fol-
low from an assessment of the target person’s instrumentality, the variable that
Nussbaum (1995) and Gruenfeld et al. (2008) pegged as the key element in ob-
jectification. Perceived instrumentality drives which form objectification will take,
Fig. 4.2 The relationship between instrumentality assessment and type of objectification
with three general ways we can view others’ instrumentality (positive, neutral, or
negative), resulting in three different forms of objectification (social objectification,
asocial objectification, and anti-social objectification, respectively).
Social objectification occurs when there is a positive appraisal of a person’s in-
strumentality, in that the person is perceived as useful to us. This form of objectifi-
cation is likely to occur when (a) one is focused primarily on one’s own goal, (b) the
attainment of that goal is dependent on the cooperation of others, and (c) others
are not required by their social roles to offer assistance. In such a situation, one
must attend to indications that another person has the ability, knowledge, or other
resources you require, and is willing (or potentially willing with some persuasion)
to provide the assistance needed. This form of objectification is closest to stereotyp-
ing or individuation, in that one is forming an impression of the target individual
with respect to his or her particular qualities and his or her state of mind. However,
because there is a narrow focus, such that it is limited to considering only those
aspects of the person’s mind that bear directly on one’s goal, it is more a form of
objectification than not. There is little to no interest in a deeper and more elaborate
impression of the objectified target person. Furthermore, interactions of this type
are relatively brief, focused on the tasks at hand, and lasting only long enough to
satisfy the objectifier’s goals.
116 T. L. Budesheim
Asocial objectification occurs when there is a neutral appraisal of a person’s

instrumentality, in that the person is judged (perhaps in many cases quickly and
automatically) to be of little or no consequence to us. This form of objectification
is likely to occur when we encounter others (a) who are of little or no consequence
to us, and/or (b) in contexts in which we can mindlessly follow well-established
behavioral scripts requiring no thought, no plan for coordinating our actions, and
hence no need to wonder what the other person will or will not do. For example,
the exchange of money for a hamburger at your local fast food restaurant is so well
scripted that both the customer and the server engage in mindless, asocial objectifi-
cation of the other. In short, asocial objectification occurs when the social world is
operating on autopilot.
Anti-social objectification occurs when there is a negative appraisal of a person’s
instrumentality, in that he or she is perceived as an obstacle or threat that we must
overcome to reach our goals. There is a robust literature relating the perception of
threat to various forms of prejudice (Cottrell and Neuberg 2005), and it is reason-
able to believe that it plays a role in objectification as well. Because the target is
viewed as a hindrance to one’s goals, one is focused on how to (a) avoid the target
and the threat they pose to achieving your goals, or (b) control the target through co-
ercion or force so that their threat is eliminated. Acting in this self-interested fashion
would be difficult if one gave consideration to the target’s experiences, thoughts,
and feelings. The result is, at best, a thoughtlessness and callousness that leads us
to avoid those we find troubling or disquieting, such as turning a cold shoulder to a
homeless panhandler who asks for money. At worst, it results in the demonization of
those that we perceive as enemies and untethers us from the restraints of our moral
compass and social norms. It is in these worst cases that we actively treat others as
less than human, and in doing so become less than human ourselves.
I deliberately limit the use of the term “dehumanization” to this category of an-
ti-social objectification. Just as the word “objectification” has been asked to cover
too much conceptual ground, the word “dehumanization” has been used more
widely as well. In recent empirical studies, for example, where the perceiver’s at-
tention might be manipulated to focus on the body instead of the face, the resulting
small decrease in judgments of certain traits regarded as key to humanness (Haslam
2006) has led researchers to label this body-focused form of objectification as a
subtle form of dehumanization. If the conceptual language of “dehumanization”
is used to describe sexual assault, slavery, or genocide, should we use the same
linguistic concept to describe such a minor shift in trait judgments? Furthermore, I
think there is an important conceptual difference between the absence of individu-
ation and dehumanization, with the former being more passive and unintentional,
while the latter is more active and deliberate. Some experimental procedures may
create an absence of individuation, which in turn results in a small but statisti-
cally significant diminution in trait judgments related to “humanness,” but this is
qualitatively different from the active and intentional dehumanization of a fellow
human being.
The Social Dynamics of Objectification in Context
In her groundbreaking treatise on objectification, Martha Nussbaum (1995) noted

that “context is everything…in many cases if not all cases, the difference between
an objectionable and a benign use of objectification will be made by the overall
context of the human relationship in question” (p. 271). This observation is re-
markably similar to that of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in her landmark opinion
on sexual harassment in Harris vs. Forklift (1993, p. 19), in which she wrote that
“whether an environment is ‘hostile’ or ‘abusive’ can be determined only by looking
at all the circumstances.” The subjective nature of this assessment requires that we
investigate the factors that influence whether an environment is judged to be hostile
or abusive. If we accept that some forms of objectification (e.g., sexual harassment)
are morally objectionable and legally actionable, then what are the characteristics
of the contexts/environments that create these malevolent forms of objectification?
Wiener, Gervais, Brnjic, and Nuss (this volume) provide an excellent review of (a)
the legal parameters of hostile environments and (b) the psychological research and
theory on objectification and dehumanization. Merging these two perspectives, they
have developed an intriguing psycholegal model of hostile environments.
To this point, I have emphasized three key elements of objectification—
instrumentality, denial of subjectivity, and body focus—all of which have been the
focus of research efforts in psychology. Yet even the combination of all three of
these elements would not inherently define a particular encounter as a negative form
of objectification, or the environment as “hostile” or “abusive” in a legal sense.
Consider a scenario in which two individuals cross paths at a local bar where they
hoped to meet potential sexual partners. They may view each other instrumentally,
with a focus on each other’s body, and with little interest in each other’s mental life
beyond the other person’s apparent willingness to “hook up.” Though some may
question this behavior on other grounds, this behavior is socially tolerated and cer-
tainly legal. In this example of social objectification, one key aspect of the situation
is the reciprocity or symmetry between the expectations of both individuals. Both
apparently regard the situation to be one in which objectification by the other was
expected and accepted.
Three key elements in each interaction are: (a) the expectations Person #1 has for
how he or she would/should be treated in this situation, (b) the expectations Person
#2 has for how she or he would/should be treated in this situation, and (3) the expec-
tations for how people in general are treated and should be treated in such contexts
(“behavior settings,” see Wiener et al., this volume). Now imagine that one of these
elements was switched. Suppose the first person shows up to the bar not expecting
that people would be there looking to “hook up” with someone else. The sexual ob-
jectification she might experience from the second person would be unwelcome and
potentially offensive and upsetting. Nevertheless, in the court of public opinion at
least, the second person would not be blamed for their objectifying behavior, which
was in accordance with what he and most others would expect in that situation,
unless it persisted once it became apparent that the first person did not reciprocate.
118 T. L. Budesheim
Expectations and context matter in actual social interactions, yet the experimen-
tal research on objectification rarely has examined actual interactions, let alone the
expectations of those involved or the context of their interactions. Wiener, Gervais,
and their colleagues (Wiener et al. 2013) have developed a research paradigm for
studying sexual objectification, in which they can examine how different individu-
als perceive the objectifying encounter. They examine the reactions of those who di-
rectly experienced the objectification, those who observed it secondhand (videotape
of the encounter) and those who read a transcript of the encounter. Interestingly,
those who experienced the objectification found it less problematic than those who
witnessed it or heard about it. Certainly, the perspective one has when viewing the
event (experiencer vs. observer) may have an influence (Taylor and Fiske 1975),
but a variety of other social dynamics may be involved as well. What is particularly
exciting about their research paradigm is that it is amenable to manipulating some
of the parameters of the situation. Experimenters can provide participants with ex-
pectations about what the encounter will be like. Experimenters can manipulate the
goals of the individual participants placed in the setting, and they can manipulate
the behavior of an experimental confederate to be either consistent or inconsistent
with those goals. Hence, one can create situations in which any objectification that
occurs is either symmetrical (expected and conducted by both parties to the in-
teraction), or asymmetrical (expected and conducted by one party but not by the
other). When the experience of asymmetrical objectification occurs in a context in
which objectification is not expected and is not the norm, it may result in (a) greater
recognition that one is being objectified, (b) greater psychological distress in the
objectified party, and (c) greater likelihood of resisting the objectification by speak-
ing out, filing a complaint, or taking other active steps to eliminate or combat any
recurrence of the objectification.
The manner in which the objectification occurs can also be manipulated. Gervais,
Wiener, and their colleagues (Gervais et al. 2011; Wiener et al. 2013) have done this
with their use of an objectifying gaze at a person’s chest for various lengths of time
during a face-to-face interview. While the person may have felt objectified, it may
have been unclear as to whether that was the objectifier’s intention. But in many
cases of workplace harassment, it is quite clear what the intention of the objectifier
was. It is one thing for an objectifier to stare at a woman’s body, and it is another
for the objectifier to stare at her body in such a way as to make it obvious to the
woman that she is being viewed in this way, like it or not. The objectifier’s intention
introduces into discussion some elements that have been missing from our discus-
sion of objectification: violability and denial of autonomy. When a man gawks at
a woman’s body in an obviously intentional fashion and draws even further atten-
tion to this objectification through his explicit verbal commentary on her body, the
woman is robbed of control over how she is viewed. To the extent that this type of
interaction is repeated and the woman is unable (or at least feels unable) to stop such
encounters, a loss of autonomy and a sense of violation will emerge.
The perception of intent is crucial to determining how we should respond, both
socially and legally (Malle and Nelson 2003;Weiner 2001). Unintentional objectifi-
cation may be more easily tolerated by those who experience it, as it may seem less
personally hurtful or rejecting. Unintentional objectification may be more likely to

elicit a positive constructive response from the objectified person, designed to edu-
cate and change the objectifier’s behavior. Intentional objectification, on the other
hand, is likely to be the most socially and psychologically damaging, and more
likely to be the subject of legal dispute.
In Conclusion
The work summarized in this chapter is but a sample of the tremendous volume of
research being conducted on objectification in its various forms. Each individual
study may have its limitations and flaws, but they have all helped the field to make
significant strides in understanding what objectification is, why it happens, and what
the consequences of it are for our relationships with others and for our own well-
being. There is much more to be done. At the conceptual level, we should refine
our understanding of what objectification is and what it is not. These refinements
could entail a more careful consideration of how objectification is different from
other forms of person perception (e.g., stereotyping and individuation), as well as
delineating the multiple facets of objectification into different subtypes of this phe-
nomenon. At the methodological level, we need more sophisticated research strate-
gies to (a) circumvent the reliance on measures of impression formation, which
are ill-suited as measures of objectification, and (b) gain a greater understanding
of the cognitive processes involved in objectification. Lastly, we need to examine
the social dynamics of objectification (e.g., the expectations that the perceiver and
the target have of each other and the setting; how the individuals actually interact
with one another in an objectifying encounter), which may largely determine the
psychological and legal ramifications of such experiences. I hope the ideas I have
contributed here provide a useful lens through which to view where we have been,
as well as where we might go next on this exploration of objectification.
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Part III
Justice and Conflict Involving People
with Mental Illness
Chapter 5
Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Recovery
from Severe and Disabling Mental Illness
William D. Spaulding, Elizabeth Cook and Andrea Avila
The principles derived from the concepts of conflict, justice, and well-being are
broad but fundamental, as the contributions to this volume collectively demonstrate.
This contribution is about how those principles play out in a particular domain of
application, treatment, and rehabilitation for severe and disabling mental illness.
The concept of therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ; Wexler and Winick 1991) provides
a useful epistemological bridge between the legal scholarship on conflict, justice,
and well-being and the science and clinical methods pertinent to mental health and
mental illness. Elsewhere in this volume, Professor David Wexler, universally rec-
ognized as a founding figure in TJ, provides an account of TJ from the perspective
of legal scholarship and practice. The perspective in this chapter combines that of
the research psychopathologist, primarily concerned with the causes of mental ill-
ness, and the clinical practitioner, primarily concerned with effective application
of helpful treatments and other interventions. TJ informs those perspectives, and
vice versa, with implications for the scientific agenda, for clinical practice, and for
development of TJ itself as a body of legal and scientific scholarship. These impli-
cations are directly pertinent to resolving conflict, promoting justice, and enhancing
well-being in the face of the challenges of severe and disabling mental illness.
From the psychopathologist and practitioner’s perspective, the promise of TJ
derives in large part from a reframing of mental illness itself. Traditionally, mental
illness is understood as a condition that creates risks to individuals and the gen-
eral public, sometimes requiring legal constraints on the individual liberties of the
identified patient, informed by scientific expertise and practitioners’ professional
opinions. The TJ perspective broadens this understanding, without necessarily com-
peting with it, to address and resolve conflicts created by mental illness. These
conflicts occur at four relatively distinct levels:
1. Between individuals with mental illness vs. the public interest
2. Between individuals vs. other family members
W. D. Spaulding () · E. Cook · A. Avila

Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0308, USA
e-mail: wspaulding1@unl.edu
126 W. D. Spaulding et al.
3. Between individuals vs. clinical practitioners

4. Between individuals vs. the mental health services industry
All these conflicts have features in common with comparable conflicts not involv-
ing mental illness, but mental illness also creates distinctive features, in the con-
flicts themselves and in possible resolution strategies. Psychopathology and the
technology of clinical practice inform methods for resolving these conflicts, much
as they (arguably) inform traditional legal/judicial decision-making.
Professor Wexler identifies “soft spots” in the legal infrastructure that repre-
sent opportunities for deference to individual circumstances and problems, to be
exploited in TJ. From the practitioner’s perspective, there are also “squishy spots”
where legal considerations (i.e., justice) overlap and interact with the imperatives of
clinical practice (i.e., pursuit of well-being). This is where the TJ philosophy leads
most directly to implications for treatment. Contemporary treatment and rehabilita-
tion of severe mental illness generate six such “squishy spots:”
1. Proxies, directives, and relapse prevention;
2. Contracts, contingencies, and behavior modification;
3. Mediation and family therapy;
4. Outpatient commitment and treatment planning;
5. Daubert evidentiary principles, involuntary treatment, and evidence-based
practice;
6. Right to treatment and mental health reform.
The remainder of this discussion will consider in turn these opportunities to enhance
treatment outcome through application of TJ. But first, it is important to consider
two other factors that have significantly reframed severe mental illness in ways that
complement TJ, psychiatric rehabilitation and the recovery movement.
Psychiatric rehabilitation (Anthony 1979; Spaulding et al. 2003; Liberman 2008)
is a holistic, integrated approach to treatment. Although its conceptual roots can be
traced to the early twentieth century (e.g., Beers 1921), it took on its contemporary
form in the 1970s through translation of the psychology of physical rehabilitation
(e.g., of paraplegia and comparable disabilities) into the psychiatric context. Its key
principle is an understanding of mental illness as a type of disability to be over-
come, rather than a disease to be cured. Consistent with the legacy of rehabilitation
psychology, psychiatric rehabilitation also emphasizes rigorous, objective measure-
ment of the various domains of human personal and social functioning and applica-
tion of treatment modalities known through experimental study to benefit function-
ing in those domains.
The recovery movement is a consumerist social movement energized primarily
by people with mental illness and their families and advocates (Bellack 2006). It
also has extensive historical roots and a close association with psychiatric reha-
bilitation (Anthony 1993). The recovery movement found a voice in two important
national policy documents, a report of the US Surgeon General (US Public Health
Service 1999) and of a presidential commission (President’s New Freedom Com-
mission on Mental Health 2004). Both were pointed indictments of the American
5 Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Recovery from Severe … 127
mental health system, especially its failure to serve people with severe and disabling
mental illness. Some in the recovery movement view any kind of technological
perspective on SMI as suspect, and therefore do not distinguish between psychiatric
rehabilitation and the conventional “medical model” practices that are the targets
of indictment. However, the mainstream view in both the psychiatric rehabilitation
community and the recovery movement is that psychiatric rehabilitation represents
a toolbox of modalities that collectively address the values and goals of the recovery
movement on a person-by-person basis. Together, psychiatric rehabilitation and the
recovery movement have created a mandate for mental health services that go be-
yond traditional medically oriented treatment outcomes, i.e., suppression of psychi-
atric symptoms with drugs, to enhance self-worth, quality of life, and participation
in the social community. These new treatment goals are particularly relevant to the
contributions of TJ.
Psychiatric Advance Directives, Relapse Prevention,

Recovery, and Wellness
Unlike developmental disorders such as autism or mental retardation, severe mental

illness tends to be episodic, meaning episodes of exacerbated illness punctuate a
higher and more stable level of baseline functioning. For some people, the differ-
ence between higher and more stable functioning vs. exacerbated illness is small,
and therefore a relatively less crucial consideration. In others, the difference is
great, even so as to cross legal criteria of competence to make decisions. There are
familiar legal mechanisms to ensure that a person’s interests are protected during
periods of legal incompetence, e.g., power of attorney and advance directives. They
are quite distinct from mechanisms usually used to protect the interests of people
whose legal incompetence does not fluctuate, e.g., guardianship. Over the past sev-
eral years, as consumer interests associated with SMI have come to the attention of
the general public and the legal community, there has been increasing interest in use
of power of attorney and advance health care directives during temporary periods
of legal incompetence.
In the US 25 states recognize advance directives in statute (National Resource
Center on Psychiatric Advance Directives 2011). Arguably, in all remaining states,
the purposes of advance directives are served by conventional power of attorney.
The difference is that an advance directive necessarily includes specifications about
the type of treatment or other dispositions to be provided, in those situations where
a legally competent choice is required of the identified patient. A power of attorney
may lack such specificity, but generally it may also be granted with the stipulation
that certain procedures are to be followed in its execution.
In an extensive program of research studies based at Duke University, 70 % of
participants with SMI said they would like to have an advance directive in anticipa-
tion of future exacerbations of their illness, although only 10 % actually had them
(Swanson et al. 2006). The discrepancy is not due to resistance from the health
care industry or professional communities. The hospital standards of the Joint Com-
mission (former Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations,
JCAHO) require that hospital staff enquire about patients’ advance directions upon
admission. The standards of the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services
(CMS) require that providers seeking reimbursement from those sources respect
valid advance health care directives. The Duke studies indicated that health care
professionals are generally accepting of the idea of advance directives, but are often
unsure of how the law and ethical codes might constrain their use (Elbogen et al.
2006; Van Dorn et al. 2008; Kim et al. 2008)
In principle, there is no dispute that people’s interests are served when they gain
a degree of control over what happens at times when they cannot make legally com-
petent decisions. In practice, it is unclear how much control advance psychiatric
directives really provide. Psychiatric directives address complex, ongoing clinical
judgments about treatment selection that may remain subject to the discretion of
health care providers. The personal choices are different from those involved in the
difficult but straightforward and familiar choices reflected in such advance direc-
tives as “Do Not Resuscitate” (e.g., Wilder et al. 2007). Often, the circumstances
that would activate an advance directive have already activated other mechanisms
that severely limit courses of action, e.g., civil commitment. Currently there is in-
sufficient research evidence to be confident that advance psychiatric directives re-
ally do improve quality of life or otherwise benefit people with SMI. Without strong
evidence, and without the resources in mental health systems to make advance di-
rectives happen, their impact is seriously limited. Research that could facilitate bet-
ter use of advance directives and related mechanisms would address:
• Staff training practices around assisting consumers with development and imple-
mentation of psychiatric advance directives
• Agency and staff characteristics that affect psychiatric advance directive imple-
mentation
• Statistics regarding number of psychiatric advance directives that are imple-
mented effectively vs. not effectively
• Whether there are certain parts of psychiatric advance directives that are typi-
cally implemented well vs. not well
• Impact of implementation (or lack thereof) of psychiatric advance directives on
consumer quality of life, etc.
One of the “squishy areas” where legal concepts and processes overlap with clini-
cal ones is between advance directives and relapse prevention. Exploration of this
overlap leads to new ideas about how to make the benefits of advance directives
more meaningful and more available to people with SMI.
The term “relapse” is often used when a person’s functioning is significantly im-
paired by episodic exacerbations of SMI. It is used generally in medicine to describe
recurrence or exacerbation of an illness, although in mental health the meaning is
less clear and specific. For example, in the alcoholism treatment community, “re-
lapse” means recurrence of alcohol use, sometimes reflecting an ideological com-
mitment to viewing alcoholism as a disease that must be managed through absolute
abstinence. More circumspect views of alcoholism hold that moderate, socially ac-
ceptable alcohol use is a legitimate treatment goal, but such views still appropriate
the idea of relapse as crossing a boundary between moderate use and abuse. These
ideas led to the development of relapse prevention as a distinct and coherent ap-
proach to treatment of alcoholism, with the goal of preventing “relapse” however
it might be defined. Psychiatric rehabilitation appropriated the idea and applied it
to relapse of mental illness, with the goal of preventing episodic exacerbations,
also known as psychotic episodes. Our modern understanding of schizophrenia as
extremely sensitive to stress and related environmental conditions gives relapse pre-
vention additional meaning and focus.
Today relapse prevention is a core modality in the psychiatric rehabilitation tool-
box (e.g., Alvarez-Jimenez et al. 2011; Gumley 2011; Ziedonis et al. 2007). It is
a combination of didactic and interactive education about the nature of episodic
disorders, identification of individual’s “warning signs” of an impending psychot-
ic episode, training in methods of forestalling relapse through stress management
skills and adherence to medication, and detailed planning for what to do and when,
during an impending relapse.
Preventing psychotic relapse in SMI usually involves ongoing participation in an
array of treatment and rehabilitation, and in that sense is inseparable from a person’s
comprehensive strategy for achieving a better life. This holistic dimension of re-
lapse prevention intersects with the values and priorities of the recovery movement,
which has generated similar modalities designed for use outside professional auspices.
An early version was called Wellness and Recovery Action Plan (WRAP; Copeland
2001), and WRAP soon became a generic term for such modalities. WRAP groups
have evolved to function somewhat like Alcoholics Anonymous, organized and op-
erated by consumers, outside of but complementing the professional mental health
system. There is insufficient outcome research on consumer-organized WRAP, but
at least one controlled trial has appeared (Cook et al. 2011), showing improvements
on measures of symptom severity, hope, and quality of life, compared to a group re-
ceiving “treatment as usual” with no wellness/relapse prevention of any kind. There
is also considerable research on the various formal components of relapse preven-
tion, indicating effectiveness in reducing frequency of relapses and improving per-
sonal and social functioning (e.g., Lee et al. 2010; Klingberg et al. 2010; Ziedonis
et al. 2007). WRAP ideas have also influenced relapse prevention for SMI, toward
being increasingly holistic and recovery-oriented, to the degree that “relapse pre-
vention” is now one dimension of a broader, individualized wellness and recovery
regimen. Interestingly, WRAP modalities have begun to include components that
explicitly address construction of advance directives. This creates an even more di-
rect connection between WRAP and TJ and indicates the importance of systematic
input from legal scholarship on development of clinical modalities.
From the clinical perspective, an advance directive is one component of relapse
prevention. Developing the directive can and should be part of the broader educa-
tion and recovery process necessary for a plan that all understand and endorse.
Issues addressed in developing the directive are often crucial aspects of the broad-
er rehabilitation and recovery process. For example, a directive requires that all
involved must find a way to agree that there are times when the identified patient
loses or is at risk of losing the ability to make competent decisions. Failure to rec-
ognize one’s own illness (“lack of insight” in psychiatric jargon) is a notoriously
detrimental feature of SMI, and this sometimes includes failure to recognize the role
of psychotic episodes in one’s own life. This creates a conflict between the identi-
fied patient, family, caregivers, and the public interest represented in this context by
the judicial system. The conflict is needlessly complicated when “insight” means
the patient understands and agrees with the psychiatric diagnostic system, an object
of strenuous controversy even within psychiatry.
“Insight” is also addressed in relapse prevention and related rehabilitation mo-
dalities. Conflict can usually be skirted or defused by a systematic focus on the
symptoms and functional consequences, without arguing about the validity of the
diagnostic system. Surprisingly to some, people often accept the idea that they can
gain control of symptoms, and that specific treatments are useful for that purpose,
without agreeing that they have a mental illness. The heavy social stigmatization of
“mental illness” partly accounts for this phenomenon. In addition, there are rational
reasons to fear acknowledgement of a condition that defers so much to professional
opinion. An advance directive that depends too much on diagnosis and professional
opinion has less chance of resolving the conflict. An advance directive developed
in conjunction with recovery-oriented rehabilitation and relapse prevention builds
consensus as development proceeds.
Unfortunately, the techniques of conflict resolution embedded in relapse pre-
vention are not commonly in the repertoire of the professionals who serve people
with SMI. This is because psychiatric rehabilitation is relatively new and new tech-
niques disseminate slowly in mental health care (Lehman, Kreyenbuhl, Buchanan,
et al. 2004). Also, rehabilitation skills are different and even inconsistent with some
conventional psychiatric practices. This may be as much a reason for profession-
als’ passivity about advance directives as their lack of legal background. Ironically,
patients with the least “insight” are probably in greatest need of advance directives.
The solution for underuse of advance directives may therefore be to augment re-
lapse prevention and related modalities to include systematic development of an
advance directive, using the techniques that have proven effective in overcoming
conflicts over “insight” and related problems.
This solution is consistent with national policy that addresses dissemination
problems in mental health. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Adminis-
tration (SAMHSA), the federal agency responsible for fostering quality in mental
health and substance abuse services, has developed a network for developing new
rehabilitation modalities and packaging them for real-world application (SAMHSA
2012). This includes materials to support on-the-job training necessary to use the
new modalities. Service providers can download these packages and use them to
develop local capabilities. A new relapse prevention modality incorporating the ca-
pacity to develop advance directives would fit quite easily into that dissemination
pipeline. In addition to the conflict resolution, skills already inherent in relapse
prevention, the package would train the skills necessary to engage appropriate legal
processes when the advance directive is complete, and the wellness plan is ready to
implement. It remains only for TJ scholars to collaborate with treatment develop-

ers to create the modality. For the purposes of research, the outcome measures that
could demonstrate superiority of relapse prevention modalities enhanced by TJ-
informed advance directives include:
• The patient’s experience of dignity and personal empowerment
• Relapse rate
• Fidelity of advance directive implementation after relapse
• Severity of the course of the illness and the long-term outcome
Clinical Decision-Making in Advance Directives

and Other TJ Applications
Inclusion of relapse prevention and related approaches creates a very different ad-
vance directive, compared to the conventional format of specifying or prohibiting
particular medications and other actions. The conventional format identifies spe-
cific decisions made in the course of “medical model” clinical practice that predat-
ed contemporary psychiatric rehabilitation, and constrains practitioners to specific
choices, e.g., type of medication or other treatments. Clinical decision-making has a
different quality in psychiatric rehabilitation. Decisions do not stem solely from di-
agnosis or risk considerations. They result from interactions between patient, prac-
titioner, and others in which technical considerations are continuously reassessed in
the context of the patient’s personal preferences and changing circumstances.
Ultimately, anticipating such complex contingencies may be too much to expect
from an advance directive. Even in conventional psychiatry, attempts to formal-
ize medication prescription as a rational process that can be fully represented by
syllogistic algorithms have been disappointing (Kashner et al. 2006). If we could
identify and understand the key decision points and processes in psychiatric re-
habilitation, and codify them as algorithms, the algorithms themselves could be
included in advance directives. Instead of specifying particular choices, they could
specify the process for making key decisions, and the assumptions or preferences
upon which the algorithms operate. This would make the advance directive more
sensitive to momentary or unanticipated circumstances, and therefore more likely
to produce a desirable outcome. Research on judgment and decision-making ap-
plied to mental health practice has just begun (Spaulding and Deogun 2011). The
first step will be to simply identify the points, either in the course of illness or the
process of treatment where the advantages of an advance directive (or any other TJ
application) can be determined. The next step will be to apply or not apply specific
decision algorithms and processes at those points in controlled experiments. The
outcome variables in such experiments could include some that are specific to the
advance directive, e.g., the satisfaction of the patient and professionals involved
in the process, and in the longer term, the reliability of implementation when the
criteria in the directive are met. In addition, the general outcome variables for TJ
research described above would apply.
Short of comprehensive algorithms for decision-making, psychiatric rehabili-
tation has evolved new methods for managing the complexity of recovery from
SMI (Spaulding et al. 2003). These include functional assessment, case formula-
tion, and integrated treatment planning. Functional assessment, a familiar technique
in clinical psychology, is a systematic approach to identifying and measuring key
abilities, including those that are impaired by SMI. Case formulation, adapted from
its origins in cognitive behavioral therapy, is a method for putting assessment data
together to form a comprehensive understanding of the factors that limit a person’s
functioning, for the purpose of informing treatment strategy. Treatment planning,
adapted from its origins in health care regulations, is a method for organizing and
coordinating complex treatment regimens. Together these three methods provide
a practical framework for (1) identifying the decisions that need to be made, (2)
collecting data to support making those decisions, and (3) evaluating the outcome.
As the following discussion demonstrates, this framework usefully guides develop-
ment of other TJ-based approaches as it does in the case of advance directives.
Contingencies, Contracts, and Behavior Modification

from the Bench
An early landmark in the history of TJ was Professor Wexler’s (1973) review, “To-
ken and taboo: Behavior modification, token economies and the law.” It was an
analysis of the justice implications of a new genre of psychiatric treatment based on
the psychology of learning and motivation, especially timely because research had
shown dramatic effectiveness of that treatment in people institutionalized with SMI
(e.g., Ayllon and Azrin 1968). The innovation in the approach was systematic use of
rewards (“reinforcement” in psychology terminology) to establish and maintain ba-
sic adaptive behavior. Over the ensuing decades, the approach evolved into a broad
range of interrelated techniques, collectively known as contingency management
because they have in common systematic use of reward contingencies, natural and
contrived, to promote adaptive behavior.
The original approach was used with involuntary and/or legally incompetent pa-
tients in institutions. The reinforcements were tokens that could be used to purchase
goods in a “token store.” As psychiatric rehabilitation expanded beyond the institu-
tions, money and other natural reinforcements took the place of tokens. Increas-
ingly, the approach was adapted for use with voluntary patients where it evolved
into techniques for negotiating, instead of imposing, reward contingencies. One
variant of the original technique is literally called contingency contracting (Heins-
sen et al. 1995).
The recovery movement brought concerns about the coercive dimensions of the
original institutional versions of contingency management, but coercion became a
complex and unresolved problem in mental health law and practice (Molodynski et
al. 2010). Today, social learning theory has matured to the point that we understand
all human behavior as operating in a complex psychological economy where indi-
viduals continually engage in social contracts, using contingencies they control to
obtain outcomes they desire. Social interactions in the mental health system are no
different. Mental health professionals have the same responsibility as everyone else,
in fact more so, to not use the contingencies they control in coercive or exploitative
ways. In addition, in accordance with the methods of rehabilitation and the values
of recovery, practitioners increasingly have the theoretical rationale and the tools to
make the contingencies they control serve the interests and desires of the identified
patient.
Mental illness does not destroy one’s ability to participate in the psychological
economy, but it limits one’s ability to apprehend and respond to contingencies that
are abstract or temporally distant. This effect is so universal and pervasive that it
has been formulated as a broad theory of schizophrenia, the immediacy hypothesis
(Salzinger 1984), wherein the functional deficits of schizophrenia are understood to
be the product of responding to contingencies that are abnormally concrete or im-
mediate. This is arguably an old idea in psychology, related to the psychoanalytic
idea of delay of gratification, but cast in the more precise and measurable terms of
learning theory and cognitive psychology. The clinical technique of contingency
management works because people with SMI who cannot respond normally to ab-
stract or distant consequences can respond normally when the behavioral contingen-
cies on those consequences are engineered to be more concrete and/or immediate.
A related idea lies at the heart of problem-solving courts (Casey and Rottman
2003), an innovation in judicial practice associated with TJ. Problem-solving courts
extend the goal of justice beyond punishing unacceptable behavior, to rewarding
adaptive behavior through the behavioral contingencies that the law creates. Drug
courts (Belenko 2002) and mental health courts (Watson et al. 2000) are specialized
forms of problem-solving courts, tuned to the special circumstances of substance
abuse and severe mental illness, respectively. In practice, there is a striking corre-
spondence between the key features of these courts and the key features of clinical
contingency management:
• Treatment services are coordinated with natural and contrived contingencies on
the identified patient’s behavior
• Non-adversarial problem-solving is applied in pursuit of the joint goals of justice
and the well-being of the identified patient
• Specific behaviors of interest (abstinence, treatment adherence, occupational
functioning) are rigorously defined and measured
• Consequences related to the behaviors of interest are clearly and measurably
specified
• There is a built-in process for measuring progress toward individual patients’
objective goals
Clinical contingency management is difficult, even in institutions where the cli-
nician has considerable control over contingencies highly salient to the identified
patient (e.g., mobility, access to desired activities and persons). Effectiveness re-
quires a lot of training and experience. A judge, applying contingency management

from the bench, arguably has greater control over contingencies than clinicians,
who have to negotiate interpersonal contracts while minimizing coercion. However,
it is not just about controlling contingencies. It includes identifying and correcting
skill deficiencies that prevent access to natural reinforcements, taking into account
the patient’s unique assets and liabilities, strategically progressing from very im-
mediate consequences for very specific behaviors to more natural consequences for
increasingly complex behaviors and skills, weighing trade-offs between treatment
and recovery imperatives vs. the patient’s experience of coercion, and avoiding in-
advertent reinforcement of maladaptive behavior (surprisingly difficult, especially
in institutional settings).
In drug courts, these vicissitudes are arguably eclipsed by relatively straightfor-
ward behaviors and contingencies. The target behavior is abstinence and adherence
to treatment, and the contingency is prosecution for drug violations. In mental health
courts, the situation is less straightforward. Clinical outcome cannot be measured
by a urine test, as it can be in drug courts. In mental health courts, the crime that
makes prosecution a contingency is not so directly related to the target behaviors or
the treatment; i.e., substance abuse is both symptom and crime—not so with psy-
chotic hallucinations, impaired social cognition, and other features of severe mental
illness. Justice demands that consequences are proportionate to the seriousness of
the offense. In mental health courts, especially for first offenders, the offense may
be relatively minor, e.g., public nuisance, trespassing. The implications of requiring
adherence to treatment for such offenses, which often will involve using prescrip-
tive medications with significant medical side effects and risks, are not necessarily
comparable to requiring abstinence from illegal drugs. On the other hand, in both
drug and mental health courts, there is usually an array of intermediate steps toward
solution of the problem that precipitated the court’s involvement, e.g., therapy atten-
dance. In both cases, there must be a judicial determination that the consequences of
not adhering to treatment are justified by the long-term implications, independent of
a separate criterion with a priori validity such as substance abuse. This requires an
advanced level of clinical assessment skill. So, do mental health court judges need
practitioner-level training in clinical contingency management?
Collaborative education and training are core features of problem-solving courts.
The relatively slow spread of mental health courts, compared to drug courts, may be
attributable to the more complex contingency management that mental health court
judges have to learn to do. So far, the training and education is somewhat limited,
and derives mostly from narrowly medical understandings of mental illness—“take
your medication and go to therapy.” A rehabilitation and recovery perspective rec-
ognizes a much more diverse array of target behaviors and contingencies, including
social consequences controlled by family members and others besides the judge
(this is arguably true in drug courts as well, although treatment is qualitatively dif-
ferent). Logically, a degree of sophistication by the judge, and close collaboration
with experts in clinical contingency management, would improve the outcome of
mental health courts beyond those achieved with the training and collaboration
protocols that typify problem-solving courts. Exactly what degree of sophistication,

and exactly what kinds of collaboration, remains unclear.
There are some controversies about mental health courts (Bazelon Center for
Mental Health Law 2012). An example is criteria for participation. A “guilty” plea
is usually required for diversion from the conventional court process. This may
create a coercive contingency, leading some to plead guilty who otherwise would
not. For some in underserved areas, it may create a perverse incentive to engage in
criminal behavior in order to access mental health services, although there are no
research findings to support this concern. A related problem is the seriousness of the
offense in question. Mental health courts usually deal exclusively with lower-level
offenses, but some have focused on felonies (Fisler 2005). There is concern that
mental health courts may impose more consequences on lower-level offenders, i.e.,
greater restrictions on liberties, than they would otherwise experience, even leading
to incarceration for not adhering to treatment. This would normally be counterbal-
anced by due process considerations, but relaxation of due process in pursuit of
problem-solving is one of the overarching concerns about problem-solving-type
courts. For felonies, the consequences are arguably already approximated by the
long-term court supervision of treatment associated with Not Guilty By Reason of
Insanity adjudications.
Whether the controversies are resolved or not, controlled outcome trials of men-
tal health courts are beginning to appear, showing lower rearrest rates and lower
jail time, and also some patient features that appear to moderate outcome (Stead-
man et al. 2011). However, it remains unknown what specific characteristics or
features of mental health courts contribute to such outcomes. Methodologically, the
next step to experimental validation of treatment interventions requires a treatment
manual. Treatment manuals are precise directions for conducting psychotherapy
and related procedures, and there are formal guidelines for their development and
essential components (e.g., Carroll and Nuro 2002; Rounsaville et al. 2001). When
subjective or clinical judgment is required, the manual specifies the grounds for
making the judgment and when it is to be made. Establishing fidelity to the manual,
i.e., that the therapist is actually following its directions, is a prerequisite to testing
a treatment against something else (a placebo, a competing treatment, nothing, etc.).
It’s possible to envision treatment manuals for mental health courts. Experimental
comparisons of different treatment manuals could reveal which outcomes are attrib-
utable to which specific features or procedures, and also what patient characteristics
predict better response to one or another manual. Once again, a collaborative effort
between clinical psychologists and legal scholars could produce one.
Mediation and Family Therapy
Mediation is increasingly of interest among legal scholars as a conflict resolution

approach that potentially avoids the stress, expense, and other adverse consequenc-
es of trials and related conventional mechanisms (e.g., Folberg and Taylor 1984).
Instead of an adversarial process refereed and decided by a judge, mediation is

explicitly collaborative. The mediator’s role is partially that of a referee, but in pur-
suit of maintaining a non-adversarial, problem-solving process. Compromise and
accommodation are expected to be the key features of conflict resolution. Mediation
is often a formal alternative to adjudication, and failure to resolve the dispute leads
to a trial or other conventional processes. Mediation is almost by definition a vol-
untary process, requiring the consent and participation of all parties in the conflict.
It is generally assumed this is what gives it certain advantages over conventional
adjudication.
Mediation has become an especially important approach to family conflicts, e.g.,
conflicts about specific child custody and visitation arrangements in the wake of
divorce. This is probably because adult family members are usually balancing their
personal interests, desires, and values against the long-term welfare of the children,
and so are more often willing to compromise and accommodate to avoid exposing
the children to a protracted and stressful legal battle.
The idea of mediated resolution to internal family conflict is complementary to
the rationale and purpose of modern family therapy specialized for families that in-
clude a member with SMI (e.g., Falloon et al. 1984; Goldstein 1991). Modern family
therapy for SMI began in the 1960s when researchers found that measures of a fam-
ily’s emotional climate were powerfully predictive of whether the member with SMI
would experience a relapse. Emotional climate was measured as levels of expressed
emotion derived from objective counts of various kinds of utterances during family
interactions. Negative effects of expressed emotion can be reduced through educa-
tion about the nature of SMI and through conventional behavioral psychotherapy
techniques, and this leads to the observed reduction in relapse rate. Nevertheless,
education and conventional therapy do not necessarily resolve all the conflicts be-
tween the person with SMI and the other family members. These conflicts include:
• The family cannot tolerate certain behaviors
• The member with SMI is dependent on other family members
• The member with SMI refuses to acknowledge having an illness
• The member with SMI is violating family expectations for achievement
• The member with SMI refuses to take medication or participate in other treat-
ment
Obviously these conflicts can be seriously detrimental to family functioning, yet fall
short of meeting criteria for civil commitment or other means of imposing solutions.
It is unknown whether a mediation approach (whether legal mediation or a less for-
mal version) might reduce or resolve conflicts that remain after conventional family
education or therapy has contributed all it can. A research agenda for addressing this
question would have to pursue a hierarchical set of hypotheses:
1. Mediation effectively resolves conflicts in families with a member who has SMI
2. Mediation’s benefits are comparable to those of modern family therapy for SMI,
making it a potential alternative to family therapy
3. Mediation complements the benefits of family therapy by resolving conflicts that

are not resolved by education or cognitive behavioral therapy
4. Different families benefit optimally from different combinations of mediation
and therapy
We already know that a simple, relatively inexpensive course of family education
confers large benefits for many families, while other families require more intensive
therapy, focused on reducing familial expressed emotion. A comparable situation
may obtain for mediation. On the other hand, a mediation approach may be more
accessible or otherwise more effective for some families, while for others a therapy
approach may be better. Ultimately, the research needs to tell us how to match indi-
vidual families with the optimal combination of education, therapy, and mediation,
based on measurable features of the family, the member with SMI, and the nature
of the conflicts.
Outpatient Commitment and the Treatment Plan
The concept of involuntary outpatient commitment (IOC) is rooted in the era of

deinstitutionalization, and took shape as the recovery movement began to transform
American mental health policy (e.g., Allen and Smith 2001; Petrila, 2003; Schopp
2003). As deinstitutionalization proceeded, and expectations about antipsychotic
medication went unchecked, failure to adhere to a medication regimen appeared to
many to be the main barrier to functioning in community settings for people with
SMI. The conventional concept of civil commitment was modified so that people
could escape institutionalization by adhering to prescribed medication. This was a
big step away from the traditional criterion of “imminent danger to self or others”
required for conventional commitment and affirmed by US Supreme Court rulings
over three decades. The change was seen by some as an unconscionable lowering of
the threshold for invoking involuntary treatment, and by others as a less restrictive
alternative for those that had been passed over by deinstitutionalization. Either way,
44 states now have an outpatient commitment law.
The first American IOC laws were instituted in the 1990s. After more than a
decade, they remain controversial (Kahan et al. 2010). The controversy is less about
whether IOC reduces rehospitalization, improves outcome or enhances public safe-
ty, and more about whether the costs to individual liberties are justified. In addition,
there is variability in outcome, attributable to variability in state laws, variability
in implementation of existing laws, and availability of treatment. An early analysis
(Ridgely et al. 2001) identified variability in service availability and enforcement
as critical barriers to conclusive findings about IOC outcomes. Subsequent research
tends to support the hypothesis that IOC leads to improved clinical outcomes (Link
et al. 2011; Phelan et al. 2010; Swarz et al. 2010), although variability in proce-
dures, enforcement, quality of services, and other contextual factors clearly have a
moderating effect (Christy et al. 2009; Petrila and Christy 2008; Segal and Burgess
2006; Pollack et al. 2005). Ironically, one moderating factor is a self-serving fatal-
ism among practitioners about the prospects of recovery in SMI. This has been
observed more generally in the context of hostility toward psychiatric rehabilita-
tion, especially among practitioners who espouse a narrow “medical model” view
of SMI (Spaulding et al. 2010; Tarasenko, Sullivan, Ritchie, and Spaulding, 2013).
The current position of the Bazelon Center, a prestigious and respected center
for protection of civil rights among people with disabilities, is that there is insuf-
ficient evidence of effectiveness to justify its use. The New York Civil Liberties
Union opposes IOC on the grounds that it is disproportionately used with members
of minority groups. There is no direct research support for this concern, and one
empirical study (Galon et al. 2012) found no difference between African-Americans
and Whites, in the rate at which IOC was applied or in the use of assertive com-
munity treatment, a clinical approach associated with IOC. There was a differential
effect on perceptions of coercion and negative pressure, with diminished influence
in African-Americans. IOC is opposed by various consumer advocacy groups on
the grounds that antipsychotic drugs have serious and potentially lethal side effects
(IOC laws often mandate adherence to medication, and sometimes little else).
Despite the controversy, IOC has become a stable feature of mental health sys-
tems. There are clearly several reasons for this. First and perhaps foremost, there
is sustained popular concern about public safety, arguably another consequence of
stigmatization and stereotyping of people with SMI (Penn and Martin 1998; Penn
et al.1999; Wylie et al. 2012). This is reflected in the nickname given to IOC stat-
utes based on the New York version, “Kendra’s Law,” named for the victim of a
person who clearly should not have been released from psychiatric care. Ironically,
the New York case was not one of simple refusal of treatment. The perpetrator had
reportedly sought treatment but was unsuccessful. Accordingly, some analysts sug-
gest that if there is any benefit to IOC statutes, it is that they may stimulate more
effective and accountable mental health services. However, that leads to the argu-
ment that if the solution is better services, better services should be pursued through
better public policy, not legal sanctions directed at the patients. In fact, IOC may
have detrimental effects on services available to voluntary patients (Swanson et al.
2010). Unfortunately, better services come at a cost, at least in the public’s percep-
tion. As a result, policy in this area is driven by media sensationalism and political
reaction as much as by clinical research.
If IOC is here to stay, a TJ perspective guides us toward its most therapeutic use
(Winick, 2003). Early in the evolution of IOC laws, TJ scholars recognized that re-
quiring participation in treatment in return for greater civil liberties (e.g., avoiding
institutional incarceration) is yet another form of contingency management (Elbo-
gen and Tomkins 2000). In that regard, the implications are about the same as for
problem-solving courts and mental health courts. Contingency management is gen-
erally recognized as a beneficial and effective tool for treatment and rehabilitation
of SMI, but to be effective, it must be based on a systematic analysis of the patient’s
individual characteristics and socio-environmental circumstances. An added com-
plication is that different IOC laws allow and/or require different kinds of contin-
gencies. The most common is the contingency between treatment non-adherence
and inpatient commitment, but in any mental health system there are numerous
other situations that potentially represent incentives toward recovery. Using them
optimally in a personalized IOC requires close collaboration between the presiding
judges or other entities (mental health boards in some states) and practitioners with
relevant training and expertise.
Recognition of the contingency management dimension of IOC is the first step
toward recognition of the broader role of psychosocial (i.e., non-pharmacological)
treatment and rehabilitation for SMI. While IOC laws focused on medication ad-
herence were proliferating in the 1990s and 2000s, the psychiatric rehabilitation
research community was producing a widening array of evidence-based treatments
having demonstrated benefits for the problems and disabilities associated with SMI
(Lehman et al. 2003). Importantly, these new treatments address functional impair-
ments, e.g., in self-care, emotional regulation, interpersonal skills, and occupational
functioning. Research on the course of SMI revealed that such impairments are at
least as important as the symptoms (e.g., hallucinations, delusions, anxiety) that are
the primary targets of psychiatric medication. People with SMI have individually
specific constellations of symptoms and functional impairments. Optimal recovery
requires a personalized selection of specific treatments from an increasingly broad
and varied array, including individual psychotherapy, family therapy, interpersonal
skills training, living skills training, and occupational/vocational support (Spauld-
ing et al. 2003; Spaulding and Deogun 2011).
Research on the impact of IOC reflects the importance of psychosocial treat-
ments in particular and comprehensive psychiatric rehabilitation in general. A key
conclusion of the Rand analysis was that IOC is only beneficial if there is a suf-
ficient array of treatment beyond medication. Subsequent findings suggest that a
period of 6 months or more is necessary to produce measurable benefits. This is
well beyond the time frame that medication exerts its effects on symptoms. The
additional time is required to acquire the skills and overcome the disabilities that
psychosocial treatments address.
The need for sufficiently personalized treatment regimens means that the central
idea of IOC, an agreement to adhere to treatment, is dependent on a credible plan
that identifies, organizes, and coordinates that regimen. As with advance directives,
psychiatric rehabilitation and recovery introduce new demands, but also new op-
portunities for effectiveness. Today, we know much more about what is required
than when IOC laws were first implemented. Adhering to a medication regimen is
expected to be insufficient in the large majority of SMI cases. A credible treatment,
rehabilitation, and recovery plan must be based on a comprehensive functional as-
sessment of the patient’s abilities and disabilities, strategic management of reward
contingencies to optimally support adherence to the plan, clear assignment of spe-
cific decision-making and treatment responsibilities to specific practitioners and
providers, and systematic, quantitative measurement of progress toward treatment
goals. Unfortunately, these are rarely features of treatment anywhere in the mental
health system, let alone the special circumstances of IOC. In practice, IOC “treat-
ment plans” do little more than identify practitioners and providers without even
specifying what they are to decide or provide.
Experience with problem-solving courts, drug courts, and mental health courts
should suggest to us that education and training is a critical component of benefi-
cial IOC. Perhaps, the need for special knowledge and skill is less obvious with
IOC, because early versions so simply required adherence to medication and other
medically focused treatment. There is great implicit deference to practitioners and
providers to “do whatever needs to be done.” Some IOC laws recognize the need for
training but insufficiently or problematically specify the mechanisms. For exam-
ple, Nebraska’s IOC law specifies that training be provided to mental health board
members by the state Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). However,
the judiciary, county prosecutors, and defense attorneys view the state HHS as an
interested party in IOC actions. The content of the training is susceptible to the po-
litical agenda of the incumbent executive branch, and therefore not impartial. IOC
laws that specify the content of training focus on the legal criteria of dangerousness
and generalities about the nature of mental illness and none are informed by the
demands of contemporary psychiatric rehabilitation and recovery.
We need a joint effort of the legal and mental health communities toward produc-
ing a modern, evidence-based “manual” for IOC processes. We should expect that
such a manual would emphasize ongoing collaboration between legal and clinical
professionals. The key organizational principle should be the validity and credibility
of the treatment plan, because the treatment plan defines the critical contingency of
the IOC process—patients must adhere to the treatment plan to preserve civil liberties.
The research suggests that if the treatment plan is insufficient, IOC is not beneficial.
We know what optimal recovery-oriented treatment and rehabilitations plans should
look like. There is no reason to doubt that the relevant criteria could be codified in
IOC procedures and implemented with reliability and fidelity. Arguably, formal out-
come trials are not required to establish the superiority of IOC processes based on
formulation of sufficient and appropriate treatment plans. We already know what the
active ingredients are. The problem is to ensure that IOC procedures generate treat-
ment plans that incorporate a personalized regimen based on valid assessment and
evidence-based practice and reliable mechanisms for measuring service provision and
outcome. This will require not just an effective training system, but also a process that
ensures the integrity of the training and insulation from politicization.
The rehabilitation and recovery perspective also raises a neglected question about
involuntary treatment: what about the training and education of the patient? Research
on coercion has revealed that patients often know or understand very little about their
legal situation or the relevant mechanisms. Even when practitioners are better in-
formed (which is not always the case), they do not necessarily share this information
with patients. Even when they do, they may not communicate effectively. Defense
attorneys seldom have the time or clinical skills to help people with SMI reach an
adequate level of understanding. In the context of traditional inpatient commitment,
specially designed educational approaches can effectively inform patients, and this
leads to higher adherence to treatment. In the IOC context, such approaches could
either be incorporated in the IOC procedures themselves or provided as a specific
component of the comprehensive treatment plan (Strachan 2004). This equivalence
of legal and clinical processes is an emergent principle of therapeutic jurisprudence.
Daubert Evidentiary Principles, Involuntary Medication,

and Evidence-Based Practice
Application of TJ to IOC raises issues of coercion and negative pressure, but ap-
plication to involuntary medication, i.e., physically compelling injection of toxic
drugs, requires consideration of the difference between “restrictiveness” and “in-
trusiveness.” In Washington vs. Harper, a 1990 US Supreme Court decision, the
Court held that it is permissible to forcibly medicate a prison inmate with mental
illness “if the inmate is dangerous to himself or others and the treatment is in the
inmate’s medical interest.” This decision was expanded 2 years later by Riggins vs.
Nevada, when the Court held that the “essential” or “overriding” state interest must
be coupled with a showing that medication is medically appropriate and essential,
after considering less intrusive means.
In 2003, Washington and Riggins were combined in Sell vs. US, when the Court
further articulated that physically forcing medication requires a finding that there
are no alternative, less intrusive treatments likely to achieve substantially the same
result. Judgments about comparability of treatment effects and less intrusive alter-
natives are critical, but ultimately to make this determination, courts must rely on
testimony that is the opinion of mental health experts.
In a different context, but very relevant to involuntary treatment, Daubert vs.
Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals set the standards for admissible expert opinion testi-
mony. These include whether it is based on theory generally accepted in the scien-
tific community, based on findings subjected to peer review, whether it is testable
with an acceptable rate of error, whether it is supported by research independent of
the current litigation, and whether it is relevant to the proceedings.
Under Sell, individuals faced with forced medication are entitled to a court’s
careful weighing of their constitutionally protected interests. Under Daubert, this
determination must be based on scientifically supported expert testimony. This
gives the defendant an opportunity to present scientific evidence contradicting what
has become a long-standing assumption in the legal community: forced medication
is the necessary and the most effective solution. In its most familiar form, scientific
knowledge is a universal principle supported by the scientific methods. However,
scientific knowledge is also that which is observed or measured scientifically in
individual cases. So, a clinical practitioner’s opinion about whether a particular
patient has benefitted from treatment may only be admissible if the treatment has
generated scientific data about that particular patient. Even a treatment that has
produced statistical effects in laboratory studies is not expected to benefit every
single patient. The principle of evidence-based treatment is complemented by the
principle of treatment-based evidence, i.e., that the process of treatment must gener-
ate self-validating data case by case.
Playing out the implications of Sell coupled with Daubert leads to striking con-
clusions. The principle that involuntary treatment must be the least intrusive neces-
sary for effectiveness is universally endorsed, but there is no universal criterion for
effectiveness. In psychiatry, involuntary treatment invariably means drug treatment
(incarceration via civil commitment is not considered “treatment;” additional court

orders are usually required to forcibly administer drugs to committed patients).
Psychological treatments are inherently less intrusive than drugs. Potentially, forc-
ible administration of drugs is only permissible if credible practice-based evidence
shows that evidence-based psychological alternatives have failed. Psychological
alternatives are almost never available in the settings where drugs are or can be
forcibly administered. Assertive invocation of these US Supreme Court decisions
in courts adjudicating involuntary psychiatric treatment could, at least theoretically,
precipitate a revolution in institutional practice. This would be the result of the close
alliance between TJ and clinical science.
Right to Treatment and Mental Health Reform
Evidence-based psychological alternatives are almost never available in institu-

tional psychiatric settings. They tend to be incompatible with guild interests and
other interests inherent to institutions. Since the 1960s, the predominant treatment
approach in psychiatric institutions has been the “medical model,” which empha-
sizes pharmacological treatment prescribed by physicians (psychiatrists), behav-
ioral management of patients by nurses, and overall direction by psychiatrists op-
erating in a “disease model” of mental illness. In the 1970s and 1980s, comparative
outcome trials showed psychological treatment approaches strikingly superior to
medical model treatment in psychiatric institutions (Paul and Lentz 1977; Paul
and Menditto 1992). Nevertheless, institutional practices have not substantially
changed. Efforts to modernize continue to be blocked and even rolled back by
institutional interests. A recent case study of elimination of modern psychiatric
rehabilitation in an institutional setting (Tarasenko et al. 2013) documented sub-
sequent declines in quality of care and outcomes, radiating throughout the mental
health service system.
In previous decades, it was hoped that this anomaly would be obviated by de-
institutionalization (Bachrach 1999). It is true that many have escaped institution-
alization, but there is growing consensus that there remains a residual “difficult to
discharge” population who need treatment in protective and restrictive settings for
extended periods of time, i.e., months rather than days (Fisher et al. 2009). This
residual population continues to be subjected to a demonstrably inferior treatment
approach.
The conflict here is between the patient’s right to treatment and the mental
health industry’s right to provide what its constituents want to provide (Magaro et
al. 1978). A landmark US Supreme court decision, O’Connor vs. Donaldson (1975),
established that institutionalized individuals must be given a reasonable opportunity
to “improve [their] mental condition,” only implicitly linking “reasonable opportu-
nity” to the quality of treatment. This was echoed in Ohlinger vs. Watson (1980),
an appellate court finding requiring institutions to provide adequate and effective
treatment. Youngberg vs. Romeo (1982) affirmed institutionalized patients’ right

to treatment, but set the criterion as generally accepted standards and practices,
not evidence-based treatment. An appellate court ruling, D.W. vs. Rogers (1997),
affirmed that a constitutional right to psychiatric care and treatment is triggered by
physical confinement of a person with mental illness, but did not change the stan-
dards of practice criterion.
It has become apparent that deferring to “standards of practice” has not com-
pelled effective treatment for institutionalized people. The economic and politi-
cal forces that might ordinarily resolve the conflict do not obtain. People who
are institutionalized have very little social clout. Their families often have little
more, but are further hobbled by fear that activism may bring retribution to their
vulnerable institutionalized members. The public has an interest in cost-effective
public mental health services, but stigmatization and media sensationalism direct
public attention to safety rather than quality of care. The public is willing to pay
any price for safety, but incarceration, not treatment, is the perceived solution. It
is left to humanitarian legislation and litigation to create a more equitable resolu-
tion of the conflict.
In Olmstead vs. L.C. (1999), the Supreme Court found that under the Americans
With Disabilities Act (ADA), individuals with mental disabilities have the right
to live in the community rather than institutions. This arguably raised the “stan-
dards of practice” criterion to an operational level, i.e., that treatment must be good
enough to improve patients’ functioning such that they can live safely in a less
restrictive setting. Successful Olmstead-based litigation has put more pressure on
public bureaucracies to develop better community-based services, but mental health
professionals are still allowed to determine who is “appropriate” for those services.
It is prohibitively difficult to prove that a patient’s institutional status is the result
of bad institutional treatment, as opposed to inadequate community-based support
services. As a result, Olmstead has not had a direct effect on the quality of treatment
within the institutions. In fact, in the Tarasenko et al. (2013) case study, the state
mental health administration used Olmstead to justify closing its evidence-based
state hospital rehabilitation program. Similarly, it remains unclear whether Olm-
stead requires the state to provide for a decent and normalized life in “community
settings.” Formerly institutional populations now often live in decrepit residential
facilities, with no access to community-based rehabilitation, and with a quality of
life and level of community participation that are no better than what they had in
the institution.
The Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act of 1980 (CRIPA) was a forceful
effort to overcome the most egregious consequences of vested institutional interests.
The act authorized the US Department of Justice to bring suit against state institu-
tions for violation of patients’ constitutional rights, and created a Special Litigation
Section within the Department to do the work. Many state hospitals across the coun-
try became targets. Litigation continues to this day. So far, the outcome of CRIPA in
redressing the conflict has been analyzed only anecdotally (Lampson 1983). In the
near future, as cases are settled and become accessible for research, more quantita-
tive analysis may be possible. Meanwhile, from a TJ perspective, critical features of

CRIPA are expected to render it less than effective.
CRIPA was passed before evidence-based practice became a national concern,
before psychiatric rehabilitation and recovery were known beyond a few research-
ers and social reformers, before Daubert, and even before TJ itself had taken shape.
Like Youngberg, the bar is set rather low for requiring validated, quality treatment.
CRIPA also requires a pattern of abuse and “grevious harm” for litigation to pro-
ceed. Institutions have thus been indicted under CRIPA not because of ineffective
treatment models but because of inhumane conditions unacceptable in any treat-
ment model. This did not prevent advocacy for evidence-based treatment by in-
dividuals in some cases, but neither did it prevent preservation of demonstrably
ineffective institutional models in others. As a result, in some cases enormous cost
yielded dubious improvements.
Were CRIPA to be rewritten today, incorporating a modern TJ perspective, its
demand for reform would be more effectively guided by outcome research and by
practice-based evidence generated by the reforming institutions. Short of new leg-
islation, TJ-informed scrutiny of ongoing CRIPA litigation should be expected to
support and enhance evidence-based reform.
Conclusion
The principles and research base of psychiatric rehabilitation provide fertile ground
for application of therapeutic jurisprudence. Conceptualizing problems associated
with SMI as conflicts between individuals, family, the public, and the mental health
industry leads to a clear agenda for empirical research to identify the most effective
TJ approaches. Applications range from design of treatment procedures to innova-
tion in judicial procedure to legislation and litigation. Realization of TJ’s promise
will require close collaboration between legal scholars, clinical researchers, and
policy makers, not only to develop effective solutions but also to ensure that such
solutions are accessible to the people that need them.
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Services, 58, 1348–1350.
Winick, B. (2003). Outpatient commitment: A therapeutic jurisprudence analysis. Psychology,
Public Policy & Law, 9, 107–144.
Wylie, L. E., Brank, E. M., & King, C. M. (2012). Incompetent and dangerous? The Stereotype
Content Model and involuntary outpatient commitment. Paper presented at the Annual meeting
of the American Psychology-Law Society, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Ziedonis, D., Yanos, P., & Silverstein, S. (2007). Relapse prevention for schizophrenia. In K. Wit-
kiewitz & G. Marlatt (Eds.), Therapist’s guide to evidence-based relapse prevention. San Di-
ego: Elsevier.
Chapter 6
Mental Illness, Dangerousness, and Police
Power Interventions in Pursuit of Justice
and Well-being
Robert F. Schopp
Introduction
Mental health courts (MHCs) have been described as courts for offenders whose
crimes are “more a product of mental illness than of criminality.”1 They are de-
signed to prevent crime by providing offenders with treatment that ameliorates the
mental illness that was a causal factor contributing to their crimes. Thus, they pro-
mote the well-being of the offenders by ameliorating the disorder that contributed
to their offenses and by reducing the risk that they will commit further crimes and
elicit further criminal punishment. In this manner, MHCs also promote the well-
being of the public by reducing the risk of recidivism by those offenders.2 Civil
commitment and post-insanity acquittal commitment provide two additional forms
of coercive police power interventions directed toward mentally ill individuals who
endanger the public.3
The presence of MHCs, civil commitment, and post-insanity acquittal commit-
ment as three alternative institutions for the application of the police power to in-
dividuals who are mentally ill and endanger the protected interests of others raises
a series of questions regarding the most defensible interpretation of the legitimate
functions of these institutions and of the significance of mental illness and danger-
ousness for the application of each institution. What type and degree of impairment
and of risk should qualify as mental illness and as dangerousness that justify the
application of each of these interventions to specific individuals in specific circum-
stances? What considerations other than type and degree of impairment and of risk
justify the application of the police power through one of these institutions, rather
than the others, to specific individuals with mental illness who harm or endanger
1
Stefan, S., & Winick, B. J., A dialogue on mental health courts, 11 Psychol., Pub., Pol., & L 507
(2005).
2
See infra § II.
3
See infra § III D.
R. F. Schopp ()
College of Law, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 68583-0902 USA
e-mail: rschopp1@unl.edu
150 R. F. Schopp
the protected interests of others? What is the appropriate form and range of expert
testimony regarding mental illness and dangerousness for the application of each of
these interventions to a specific individual in specific circumstances? In what way
might research advance our abilities to: understand the relevant conceptions of and
relationships between mental illness and dangerousness, justify appropriate forms
of intervention for particular individuals in specified circumstances, and provide
relevant testimony in individual cases that applied these interventions?
The current chapter identifies and clarifies some of the central considerations
relevant to the most defensible applications of these institutions to individuals who
manifest mental disorders and endanger others. It does not purport to provide a for-
mula for application. Rather, it identifies some central principles and considerations
relevant to selecting the most justifiable applications to specific individuals. The
analysis proceeds in the following manner. The section “Mental Health Courts” pro-
vides a brief summary description of MHCs and of two hypothetical offenders who
illustrate the central concerns relevant to the justified application of MHCs. The
section “Police Power and Mental Illness” pursues an analysis of the central consid-
erations that justify the application of the police power to psychologically impaired
individuals through the criminal justice system (CJS) or civil commitment. The
section “Expert Testimony and Research Regarding Psychological Impairment and
Culpability” addresses the appropriate form and range of psychological expert testi-
mony regarding mental illness, and it identifies some aspects of further research that
might inform that testimony. The section “Expert Testimony and Research Regard-
ing Dangerousness” addresses the appropriate form of expert testimony regarding
dangerousness, and it identifies some aspects of further research that might inform
that testimony. The section “Conclusion” concludes the analysis.
Mental Health Courts
The specific range of offenses and offenders addressed by MHCs can vary across
jurisdictions. As generally discussed, they function as specialty courts in the CJS
designed to reduce recidivism by promoting effective treatment for offenders who
manifest mental disorder that contributed to their criminal offenses. One primary
purpose of the CJS, including MHCs, is to reduce crime. MHCs are designed to
reduce recidivism by promoting effective treatment of offenders whose crimes are
“more a product of mental illness than of criminality.”4 The specific applications
and procedures of MHCs vary across jurisdictions. They frequently require guilty
pleas from mentally ill offenders, apply criminal sentences, suspend those sentenc-
es, place the offenders on probation, and require as a condition of probation that
those offenders participate in treatment designed to reduce the risk of recidivism
by ameliorating the disorders that contributed to their criminal conduct. If the of-
fenders do not participate in the treatment required as a condition of probation,
4
See supra note 1.
6 Mental Illness, Dangerousness, and Police Power … 151
incarceration for brief periods is applied to enforce treatment participation. Some

jurisdictions allow criminal records to be expunged for offenders who complete
their conditions of probation.5 MHCs are designed to promote the well-being of so-
ciety and of the mentally ill offenders by providing treatment expected to ameliorate
the impairment that contributed to the criminal offenses committed by these offend-
ers. Insofar as the treatment is effective, it can reasonably be expected to reduce the
risk of recidivism and of punishment.
Consider two similar but different offenders as hypothetical examples of indi-
viduals who manifest psychological impairment that contributes to their criminal
offenses. Anderson has been diagnosed with a chronic schizophrenic disorder that
varies in severity across time and circumstances.6 He voluntarily participates in
treatment during periods of relatively less severe impairment. When his impair-
ment exacerbates, however, his capacities to accurately perceive reality, to reason
coherently, and to make reasoned judgments deteriorate. During these periods, he
receives hallucinatory orders from God to stop participating in treatment because
Satan’s agents are using the medication to prevent him from doing God’s work.
He abandons treatment in response to these hallucinatory orders, and his cognitive
deterioration exacerbates. He then conforms to hallucinatory orders from God by
breaking into his neighbor’s house and destroying the neighbor’s furnace because
God’s voice told him that the neighbor was using the furnace to beam Satan’s mind
waves into his brain.7
Baker experiences chronic, severe depression involving sadness, fatigue, pes-
simism, and anhedonia.8 Although his depression is severe, it does not include psy-
chotic distortion of his ability to recognize reality. He spent extended periods lying
dormant in bed preoccupied with his own judgments that he is worthless and that
there is no hope that he will improve. He lost his job and his apartment because
he has been unable to work with minimum adequacy during the worst periods of
depression. Since losing his job, he resides in homeless shelters, under highway
overpasses, and in alleys. He sometimes steals food when he is hungry and unable
to secure food from assistance agencies. When he has not eaten for several days, he
breaks into a neighbor’s basement to steal food. He understands that this conduct is
contrary to law, to generally accepted societal standards, and to his own standards of
acceptable behavior. His depression deepens further as he breaks into his neighbor’s
basement because he interprets his own conduct as reaffirming his worthlessness.9
5
Problem Solving Courts (Wiener, R. L., & Brank, E. M., eds.); John Petrila, Mental health
courts: Do they work? And does it matter?, Chap. 8 in Problem Solving Courts; Redlich, A. D.,
The past, present, and future of mental health courts, Chap. 9 in Problem Solving Courts.
6
American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
298–313 (4th ed. Text Revision 2000). The appendix provides brief descriptions of the hypotheti-
cal offenders in the order in which they appear.
7
For an earlier version of Anderson, see Schopp, R. F., Mental health courts: Competence, respon-
sibility, and proportionality, Chap. 10 in Problem Solving Courts, supra note 5.
8
American Psychiatric Association, supra note 6, at 349–352, 371–382. (Anhedonia refers to the
inability to experience pleasure in activities that are normally pleasurable.)
9
Schopp, supra note 7, providing an earlier version of Baker.
152 R. F. Schopp
Baker presents an example of a defendant appropriate for MHC because his psy-
chological impairment was sufficiently serious to reduce his culpability, but that im-
pairment did not preclude competence to proceed in the criminal process or criminal
responsibility for the offense. Thus, he is competent to plead guilty in the MHC,
and a suspended sentence with participation in treatment as a condition of probation
is proportionate to his limited culpability and reasonably expected to promote his
well-being and the public well-being by ameliorating the disorder that contributed
to his offense. The use of brief periods of punishment to enforce Baker’s participa-
tion in mandated treatment can be justified if Baker remains criminally responsible
and thus is accountable for his failure to conform to the conditions of probation.
Baker’s failure to meet the conditions of probation, including participation in treat-
ment, might not justify punishment, however, if his failure to participate is a result
of deterioration into a more severe condition of impairment that renders him not
responsible for his conduct.
Compare Baker to Anderson, who is not appropriate for MHC because his psy-
chotic disorder renders him: incompetent to plead guilty, not guilty due to insanity,
and, therefore, not deserving of a criminal sentence as a matter of retributive justice.
Because he does not deserve a criminal sentence, that sentence cannot justly be ap-
plied and suspended as a condition for probation, and he cannot justly be required
to serve jail time for failure to conform to treatment as a condition of probation.10
In addition, he does not deserve incarceration for failure to conform to those condi-
tions of probation unless his impairment has improved to the degree that he is justly
held responsible for his failure to conform.
Anderson’s impairment and circumstances that render him inappropriate for
MHC should lead us to ask whether he is more appropriately subject to criminal
trial, acquittal under the insanity defense, and post-acquittal commitment, or to civil
commitment as the most appropriate form of police power intervention. What rea-
soning justifies one intervention or the other as the most consistent with the purpose
and justification of the relevant doctrine? Similarly, although Baker is eligible to
participate in the MHC, what reasoning would justify the decision to apply the
MHC to Baker rather than civil commitment or an ordinary criminal court with the
possibilities of an insanity defense and post-acquittal commitment or of reduced
sentencing due to the mitigating effect of his disorder?
10
I do not claim here that he could not be found guilty in a jurisdiction that did not have an insanity
defense or that he could not be competent to plead guilty if his treatment ameliorated his impair-
ment to the degree that rendered him competent to proceed. I claim only that a guilty verdict and
criminal punishment would be inconsistent with the underlying principles of retributive justice.
Police Power and Mental Illness
Police Power, the Criminal Justice System, and MHCs
The police power is the source of the state’s authority to enact and apply law “to
preserve the public security, order, health, morality, and justice.”11 The legitimate
function of the police power is “to secure and promote the public welfare, and it
does so by restraint or compulsion.”12 The primary function of the police power is
to protect the interests of the public, and it often does so by intervening coercively
in the conduct of individuals or entities. States ordinarily exercise the police power
through the CJS for those who culpably commit crimes and through the civil com-
mitment system for those who are mentally ill and harm or endanger others. Se-
verely impaired individuals, such as Anderson, lack the capacities of responsible
agency that would render them competent to proceed in the criminal process and
criminally responsible for their conduct. Other impaired individuals, such as Baker,
retain the capacities required for competence to proceed and for criminal respon-
sibility, but their impairment reduces their blameworthiness for their conduct and,
thus, the severity of justified punishment.
MHCs provide a component of the CJS designed to address offenders, such as
Baker, who are appropriately subject to the criminal law but manifest impairment
that renders them less blameworthy than most offenders who commit similar of-
fenses and more amenable to interventions that promote their well-being and the
public well-being by ameliorating their impairment and reducing the risk that they
will recidivate. Reduced severity of punishment for these offenders promotes well-
being in a manner consistent with justice because relatively less severe sentences
for these offenders are proportionate to their reduced culpability. Insofar as MHCs
accurately identify and address these offenders, they apply the police power through
the CJS in a manner that advances the preventive purpose of that institution and
conforms to the justification of criminal punishment.
Insofar as MHCs function as designed, four important applications of the values
for justice and well-being converge. The first two applications address the value
for the well-being of those affected by legal institutions. First, MHCs that provide
effective treatment promote the well-being of the offenders by ameliorating the
mental disorders that are disrupting their lives, promoting their criminal behavior,
and rendering them subject to coercive state intervention. Second, by promoting
this treatment, the MHCs promote the general well-being of the public by reducing
the risk of criminal recidivism by these individuals.
The third and fourth applications address the principles of retributive justice pur-
sued by the CJS. As ordinarily understood, justice requires that each individual
is treated as that person is due according to the applicable principles. Retributive
justice requires that each offender receive the punishment that is consistent with
11
Black’s Law Dictionary 1276 (Garner, B. R., ed., 9th ed. 2009).
12
Id.
154 R. F. Schopp
the applicable principles of justified punishment.13 The Supreme Court’s opinions

do not provide a single consistent theory of justified punishment under the Eighth
Amendment, but several of those opinions identify retribution as an important pur-
pose or limit of punishment.14 A retributive justification of punishment prescribes
punishment in proportion to the desert of the offender.15 Supreme Court opinions
apply the retributive purpose of punishment as addressing punishment in proportion
to the severity of the offense and the culpability or blameworthiness of the offender.
The Eighth Amendment proscribes excessive punishment, rather than prescribing
specific punishments. Thus, these opinions discuss retributive limits on the severity
of punishment.16
The principle of comparative justice requires that the criminal justice process
treat similar offenders alike and relevantly different offenders differently in pro-
portion to their relevant differences.17 Courts that consistently apply the same
defensible principles of retributive justice to a variety of offenders and offenses
conform to the requirement of comparative justice. Consistent application of the
applicable principles of retributive justice would apply similar sentences to offend-
ers who commit offenses of similar severity with similar degrees of culpability.
Consistent application of those principles would generate differences in severity
of punishment, however, when applied to offenders who differed in the severity of
their offenses or in their degree of culpability for their offenses. These differences
would reflect variation in punishment proportionate to these offenders and offenses,
rather than arbitrary or discriminatory departures from the principled application of
punishment. Several concurring opinions in Furman vs. Georgia establish the im-
portance of comparative justice in the Eighth Amendment doctrine by emphasizing
the significance of arbitrary or discriminatory variations in capital sentencing as a
justification for their reversal of three capital sentences.18
By applying interventions less severe than would ordinarily be applied to of-
fenders who committed similar offenses but lacked similar impairment, the MHCs
apply the principle of proportionality in retributive justice because they apply pun-
ishment of reduced severity that is proportionate to the degree to which each of-
fender’s impairment reduces that individual’s culpability. Thus, they apply punish-
ment that is consistent with non-comparative retributive justice because the severity
of punishment in each case reflects the degree of culpability appropriately attrib-
uted to the specific offender and offense. Insofar as these courts accurately identify
criminally responsible offenders whose impairment renders them less culpable than
13
The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy 759 (Audi, R. ed., 2nd ed. 1999).
14
Roper vs. Simmons, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 1194–1196 (2005); Atkins vs. Virginia, 536 US 304, 319
(2002); Gregg vs. Georgia, 428 US 153, 183–184 (1976).
15
The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, supra note 13, at 759.
16
Roper vs. Simmons, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 1194–1196 (2005); Atkins vs. Virginia, 536 US 304, 319
(2002); Gregg vs. Georgia, 428 US 153, 183–184 (1976).
17
Joel Feinberg, Rights, Justice, and the Bounds of Liberty 265–287 (1980).
18
Furman vs. Georgia, 408 US 238, 242–257 (Douglas, J., concurring), 274–277 (Brennan, J.,
concurring), 308–310 (Stewart, J., concurring), 364–366 (Marshall, J., concurring).
unimpaired offenders who commit similar offenses and consistently apply prin-
ciples of proportionality to the full range of offenders, they promote comparative
justice by applying punishments of different severity that express different degrees
of condemnation in proportion to the morally relevant differences among offenders.
Criminal Responsibility, Culpability, and Psychological

Impairment
Recall Anderson, who is not appropriately addressed through the MHC because the
guilty plea, suspended sentence, and periods of incarceration to enforce participa-
tion in treatment violate the applicable principles of retributive justice due to mental
illness that precludes culpability for the offense.19 What reasoning justifies civil
commitment or criminal trial, an insanity defense, and post-insanity acquittal com-
mitment as the more justified approach for Anderson?
Civil commitment ordinarily requires that he meet the criteria of mental illness
and dangerousness.20 Is Anderson dangerous to others? His offense did not involve
violence toward any other persons, but it did involve destruction of property, pos-
sible harm to others if destroying the furnace resulted in fire or toxic fumes, and
possible harm to others or to self if the residents of the house became aware of his
presence and exercised force in resistance. His conduct would seem to meet the
dangerousness criterion in a jurisdiction that explicitly included dangerousness to
property, and the potential for harm to the residents would arguably be sufficient to
meet the requirement of a statute requiring dangerousness to other persons.21
What interpretation of “mental illness” or of “mental disease” would support
addressing his impairment and conduct as appropriate for civil commitment or for
criminal trial resulting in an insanity defense and post-acquittal commitment? If
his impairment is sufficient to constitute mental illness for civil commitment and a
mental disease for an insanity defense, what reasoning justifies application of either
path as most consistent with the purposes and justifications of these provisions as
components of a comprehensive body of law designed to guide and discipline the
exercise of the police power?
As discussed previously, MHCs pursue convergence of four applications of the
values for well-being and retributive justice. Insofar as civil commitment and an
insanity defense followed by post-acquittal commitment are accurately applied to
those who are not criminally responsible for harming or endangering others, retribu-
tive justice precludes punishment. Thus, appropriate application of these institu-
tions of police power intervention requires explicit identification of additional soci-
etal values that justify application of each institution, a clear explanation regarding
the type and degree of impairment that would render a person appropriate for the
19
See supra text accompanying notes 6–7.
20
Michael L. Perlin, I Mental Disability Law § 2A (2nd ed. 1998).
21
Id. at §§ 2.4–4.2, 4.8
156 R. F. Schopp
application of each doctrine consistent with the applicable justification, and a clear
statement of the type and degree of risk that should qualify as dangerousness ac-
cording to these justifications.
Common standards for the insanity defense excuse offenders who fulfilled the
offense elements for a criminal offense but, due to a mental disease or defect, did
not know (or appreciate) that their conduct was wrong.22 This inability to know that
one’s conduct is wrong is ambiguous, however, in that a specific jurisdiction might
interpret the insanity standard as addressing the ability to know that one’s conduct
violates law, widely accepted societal standards of morality, or one’s personal stan-
dard of moral wrongfulness.23
Consider two variations of Anderson. Anderson1 believes that his conduct is in
violation of law, but he believes that he is morally obliged to conform to God’s com-
mand to violate that law. He also believes that most members of society would agree
that his conduct was morally required if they were aware of the information he had
received from God regarding the evil effects of the furnace and understood that he
was acting in response to God’s command. Anderson2 believes that his conduct is
in violation of law and of generally accepted societal standards, but he believes that
widely held moral standards in society are a result of the pervasive influence of
Satan on the population. Thus, he is morally obliged to perform this conduct that is
contrary to law and generally accepted societal morality because God commands it
as necessary to free this household of Satan’s influence.
Anderson1 would qualify for an insanity defense in a jurisdiction that interpreted
that defense as applying to individuals who were unable to know that their conduct
was wrong by widely accepted societal standards of moral wrongfulness or by their
personal moral standards. He would not qualify for the insanity defense in a juris-
diction that interpreted the defense as applying only to those who were unable to
know that their conduct was contrary to law. Anderson2 would not qualify for the
insanity defense in jurisdictions that applied either the standard of wrongfulness
embodied in law or the standard of wrongfulness according to widely accepted
societal moral judgments. He would qualify for an insanity defense, however, if the
jurisdiction applied a standard of personal knowledge that the conduct is morally
wrong.
Compare East, who qualifies for a clinical diagnosis of pedophilia on the basis of
an ongoing pattern of sexual fantasies regarding prepubescent children and a series
of incidents in which he has subjected children to sexual activity.24 He is criminally
charged with committing sexual offenses against children.25 He is aware that sexual
activity with children is contrary to law and societal standards of morality, but he
believes that pedophilia is not wrong because it reflects love of children. Thus, he
22
Model Penal Code § 4.01 (Proposed Official Draft 1962); Wayne R. LaFave, Criminal
Law§ 7.2 (5th ed. 2010).
23
LaFave, id. at § 7.2(b; 4).
24
American Psychiatric Association, supra note 6, at § 3.02.2, p 572.
25
Model Penal Code, supra note 22, at Article 213.
qualifies for a clinical diagnosis, and he does not believe that his conduct is wrong
by his personal moral standards.
Compare Frant, who qualifies for a clinical diagnosis of antisocial personality
disorder on the basis of an extended pattern of criminal conduct, aggression, and
lack of empathy or remorse.26 While in prison for a series of crimes, he becomes a
member of the Church of The Aryan Father.27 After release, he sets fire to a house
occupied by an interracial couple because his newly adopted religion teaches that
God forbids miscegenation. Almost everyone he talks with agrees, so he is sure that
only “Washington elites” disagree. Frant qualifies for a clinical diagnosis, and he
does not believe that his conduct is wrong by his personal moral standards or by
widely held societal standards.
Assume that most courts and readers would agree that East and Frant should be
held responsible for their crimes, rather than acquitted due to insanity. What reason-
ing justifies acquittal through the insanity defense for Anderson1 or Anderson2,
but not for East or Frant? All qualify for clinical diagnosis of mental disorder, and
none believe that their conduct is wrong, although all are aware that it violates law.
Anderson2 and East are also aware that their conduct is wrong by widely held so-
cietal standards of morality although they believe that those standards are contrary
to correct morality.
Frant differs from Anderson1 and Anderson2 in that Anderson1 and Anderson2
qualify for an Axis I clinical diagnosis, but Frant qualifies for an Axis II clinical
diagnosis.28 An Axis I clinical diagnosis would not be sufficient to fulfill the re-
quirements of the insanity defense, however, because East also fulfills the criteria
for an Axis I clinical diagnosis.29 What reasoning differentiates these offenders for
the purpose of an insanity defense? If one applies knowledge of widely held societal
standards of morality, neither East nor Anderson2 qualify for the insanity defense.
Frant might have an arguable claim, however, insofar as he believes that his moral
judgment is consistent with widely held societal judgments. Although all four of-
fenders qualify for clinical diagnosis, they vary substantially in the type and sever-
ity of impairment that qualifies them for their diagnoses. It seems very unlikely
that a court or jury would consider East or Frant appropriate for acquittal under the
insanity defense, but clearly articulating the basis for that conclusion is important in
order to responsibly address Anderson1 and Anderson2, as well as to maintain the
integrity of the process. In order to accurately assess the criminal responsibility of
each individual, we must shift attention from clinical diagnostic categories to the
specific functional impairment manifested by each offender and to the manner in
which that impairment influenced the criminal conduct at issue.
26
American Psychiatric Association, supra note 6, at § 301.7.
27
To my knowledge, there is no church by this name. I intend it to represent a fictional church
based on the belief that the members are obliged to protect racial purity consistent with God’s
design.
28
American Psychiatric Association, supra note 6, at 27–37.
29
Id. at 28.
158 R. F. Schopp
Compare Anderson3, who resembles Anderson2 in that he believes that his con-
duct is contrary to law and societal standards, but he also believes that his conduct is
wrong by his personal moral standards. He also believes that he is morally obliged
to perform that conduct, however, because he has experienced auditory hallucina-
tions commanding him to perform that conduct. He understands these hallucina-
tions as commands from God, and he believes that God is omnipotent, omniscient,
and omni-benevolent. Thus, conformity to God’s commands is morally mandatory.
That is, he holds directly contradictory beliefs that his conduct is morally wrong
and that it is morally mandatory because it is commanded by the morally infallible
God. His ability to hold these obviously contradictory beliefs without questioning
whether he might be mistaken regarding at least one of these beliefs is the product
of a severe thought disorder that distorts his ability to direct his conduct through the
minimally coherent processes of practical reasoning that are necessary to participate
in the CJS that governs the behavior of responsible agents in the public domain of
a democracy.30
Compare Anderson1 and Anderson2 to Anderson3. All three are aware that their
conduct is contrary to law. Anderson2 and Anderson3 differ from Anderson1 in that
they are aware that their conduct violates generally accepted societal standards of
moral wrongfulness. It is not clear that this standard justifies differential treatment
regarding criminal responsibility and punishment, however, because this standard
would exempt Anderson1 and Frant from criminal responsibility while holding An-
derson2 and Anderson3 responsible. Yet, all three variations of Anderson differ from
Frant in that they reveal serious distortion of psychological process that arguably
precludes culpability. The central impairment that all three have in common is dis-
tortion of thought process that prevents them from directing their behavior through
decision making as minimally competent practical reasoners. Their distorted beliefs
regarding moral wrongfulness by societal or personal standards are important to
criminal responsibility primarily because these distorted beliefs reflect impaired ca-
pacities of comprehension and reasoning that prevent them from directing their con-
duct through a minimally competent process of practical reasoning. Thus, they are
unable to participate in the CJS as responsible agents. Each fails to recognize that
his conduct is wrong by some interpretation of the wrongfulness standard because
each lacks the capacities necessary to engage in a minimally competent process of
practical reasoning regarding wrongfulness. This shared impairment of cognitive
process undermines the justification for subjecting them to harsh treatment and the
explicit expression of condemnation that constitutes criminal punishment.31
Compare East, whose diagnosis of pedophilia reflects a disorder of sexual desire
and sexual behavior with children but does not involve disorder of comprehension
or reasoning.32 He knows his conduct is wrong by legal and generally accepted so-
cietal standards. He disagrees with those standards, but he possesses the capacities
30
Id. at 297–313; Robert F. Schopp, Competence, Condemnation, & Commitment 144–151
(2002).
31
Schopp, id. at 144–151.
32
of comprehension and reasoning that enable him to direct his behavior according
to legal and societal standards through a minimally coherent process of practical
reasoning, and thus, to function as a responsible participant in the society ordered
by law. Thus, his disagreement regarding the wrongfulness of his sexual exploita-
tion of children is reasonably interpreted as a result of his desire to pursue his sexual
preferences and avoid confronting the exploitative nature of those preferences.
Compare Frant, whose diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder reflects a pat-
tern of criminal conduct involving deceitfulness, aggression, and impulsivity. He
demonstrates a lack of remorse for his criminal conduct and a lack of empathy for
those who suffer injury from his behavior.33 He manifests no impairment of the
minimal capacities of comprehension or practical reasoning that qualify him as a
responsible agent in the CJS. His belief that his criminal conduct is not wrongful by
widely held societal standards is a product of his selective interaction with others
who share his beliefs, his inclination to accept propositions that are personally con-
venient, and his preference for beliefs that facilitate his abilities to rationalize his
desired behavior and deny responsibility. It may be difficult to determine whether
his recently acquired religious beliefs are sincerely held or merely a convenient ra-
tionalization for his ongoing criminal conduct. Religious beliefs can blur the bound-
ary between thought disorder and ordinary cognitive process insofar as we cultur-
ally accept religious beliefs based on faith in the absence of reason or evidence that
would ordinarily be expected as the basis for nonreligious beliefs.34 Thus, it can be
difficult to clearly explain the distinction between some beliefs that reflect thought
disorder and some beliefs grounded in religion. Insofar as we recognize that the sig-
nificance of mental disorder for criminal responsibility rests upon impaired thought
process, rather than merely on inaccurate beliefs, however, Frant’s belief that his
conduct is not wrong should not exculpate him in the absence of substantial distor-
tion of cognitive process.
Individuals such as East and Frant arguably differ from individuals with severe
thought disorders for the purpose of criminal responsibility because they possess
the capacities of practical reasoning that enable them to determine that their conduct
is wrong by standards of law or generally accepted societal mores. Thus, they are
responsible for their failure to ascertain and conform to those mores. In contrast,
some individuals with severe impairment of cognitive process associated with psy-
chotic disorders lack the capacities of comprehension and reasoning that would
enable them to understand or to reason competently about standards of wrongful-
ness embodied in law or societal mores. Thus, they lack the capacities necessary
to reason competently regarding these standards or their obligations to conform to
these standards. Due to impaired capacities of comprehension and reasoning, they
are not justly held accountable for their failure to direct their conduct according to
the applicable standards of law or societal mores.
Consider, in contrast, the competent conscientious objector who recognizes that
his conduct violates law but concludes through competent processes of practical
33
Id. at 701–706.
34
The Sloane-Dorland Annotated Medical-Legal Dictionary 187 (Sloane, R., ed. 1987).
160 R. F. Schopp
reasoning that he is justified in violating that law because it is unjust. In each partic-
ular case, various observers might agree or disagree with that individual’s decision
and conduct, but he differs from the seriously cognitively impaired person in that he
possesses the cognitive capacities that render him able to engage in a decision-mak-
ing process that qualifies him as responsible for that decision. Whether he decides
to violate law because he concludes that the law is unjust according to his religious
beliefs or according to his own critical moral reasoning, he acts as a responsible
agent because he retains the capacities to engage in at least minimally adequate
practical reasoning regarding the decision to violate law.
Compare East and Frant to East2. East2 is 20 years old and has been consistently
diagnosed with mild mental retardation. He has consistently scored at approximate-
ly 60–65 on intelligence tests and demonstrated corresponding impairment in social
skills and adaptive functioning.35 He has been arrested and charged with several
counts of sexual offenses for engaging in consensual sexual activity with 13- and
14-year-old girls.36 East2 is aware that this conduct is forbidden, but due to his im-
pairment and the willing participation of the girls, he is not aware of the seriousness
of the potential harm to the girls, of potential pregnancy, or of the criminal punish-
ment he could receive.
East2 and East are both subject to clinical diagnosis and are at least arguably
competent to proceed in the criminal process and criminally responsible. It would
be at least plausible to contend, however, that East2 differs from East in that his
clinical diagnosis reflects impairment that substantially reduces his culpability and
renders him appropriate for a suspended sentence and probation on the condition
that he participates in monitored training designed to promote his conformity to so-
cietal standards of acceptable behavior. Thus, the most justified societal response to
East, Frant, and East2 through ordinary criminal courts or the MHC varies with the
specific type and severity of functional impairment they manifest and the manner in
which their impairment influences their degree of culpability and the risk that they
will engage in further criminal conduct.
In short, the CJS provides the primary institution for the exercise of the police
power in response to conduct that culpably harms or endangers others. Individu-
als who culpably harm or endanger others are subject to criminal prosecution and
punishment. Some of those individuals such as East and Frant qualify for clinical
diagnoses, but they remain subject to criminal prosecution and punishment because
they retain the capacities of criminal competence and responsibility. Furthermore,
their clinical diagnoses do not reflect impaired capacities of a type that renders them
substantially less culpable than ordinary offenders by societal standards embodied
in law. Thus, comparative justice requires criminal sentences similar to those ap-
plied to other offenders who commit similar offenses under similar conditions.
In contrast, MHCs provide an alternative to the ordinary approach to criminal
prosecution and punishment for individuals, such as Baker and East2, who suffer
mental disorder that contributes substantially to their criminal conduct in a manner
35
36
Model Penal Code, supra note 22, at §§ 213.3(1)(a), 213.4(b).
that does not preclude competence to proceed in the criminal process or criminal
responsibility but does render them substantially less culpable than most ordinary
criminals who commit similar offenses. Thus, MHCs provide an alternative path
through the CJS for these individuals, rather than an alternative to the CJS. In this
manner, MHCs seek integration of mental health interventions into the criminal jus-
tice process. Insofar as MHCs accurately identify criminally responsible offenders
who manifest impairment that contributes to their criminal behavior in a manner that
renders them less culpable than unimpaired offenders, they can promote treatment
interventions that protect the well-being of the individual and the public while re-
maining consistent with the applicable principles of justice. In many circumstances,
accurately identifying individuals whose impairment contributed to their criminal
conduct requires competent clinical assessment. Thus, integrating the MHC process
with local clinical resources is an important step in promoting the MHC’s ability to
promote individual and societal interests in integrating effective treatment with the
applicable principles of justice. Civil commitment or post-insanity acquittal com-
mitment provide two alternative interventions for those who harm or endanger oth-
ers due to serious psychological impairment. In contrast to MHCs, neither involves
a finding of guilt nor a criminal sentence.
Post-insanity Acquittal Commitment and Civil Commitment
Assuming that the justification for applying standard criminal conviction and pun-
ishment to East and Frant but providing MHCs as an alternative path through the
CJS for Baker and East2 is persuasive, what reasoning justifies civil commitment
or criminal prosecution, an insanity defense, and post-acquittal commitment as the
most justified approach to Anderson? Civil commitment under the police power
would apply to individuals who provided clear and convincing evidence that they
suffer significant psychological impairment and endangered others, although they
had not yet engaged in criminal conduct.37 Consider, for example, Peter who mani-
fests a chronic schizophrenic disorder involving delusions and hallucinations. Dur-
ing periods of exacerbation, he hears the hallucinatory voice of God. During one
period, this voice told him that he was John, the Baptist, who was returned to earth
because he had failed to baptize some of the Jewish people. Peter began sprinkling
water on people leaving Jewish temples in order to baptize them in accordance with
God’s orders. The police removed him, but he was not civilly committed because
he had not endangered anyone. Recently, Peter has been referring to himself as
Abraham and approaching small boys in the local park. He has addressed them as
Isaac and told them that the need for sacrifice is greater now than ever. The police
responded to calls from parents, and the county attorney has initiated civil commit-
ment proceedings.38
37
Perlin, supra note 20, at §§ 2A–3, 4.
38
Schopp, supra note 30, at 159–165.
162 R. F. Schopp
In circumstances such as these, civil commitment with appropriate treatment

would promote the treatment interests of the impaired individuals and society’s in-
terest in reducing the risk of harm to others associated with their mental illness.
Thus, it would promote individual and societal well-being in a manner consistent
with retributive justice because it would not apply a criminal trial or punishment to
a person who had not engaged in criminal conduct. It would involve an intrusion
into ordinarily protected liberty, but it would not carry the expression of condemna-
tion inherent in criminal punishment. Neither would it violate the ordinary right to
make self-regarding decisions because Peter’s psychotic disorder that renders him
a danger to others justifies state intervention under the police power to prevent that
harm.39
A criminal trial with an insanity defense and post-acquittal commitment would
resemble civil commitment in that it would provide a path to commitment and treat-
ment, rather than punishment. This path would subject an individual, such as Peter,
who has not yet engaged in criminal conduct, to an unjustified criminal charge and
trial, however, because there is no legitimate basis for filing a criminal charge or
for pursuing a criminal trial. If the court applied the law appropriately, a trial would
result in a verdict of not guilty, rather than not guilty due to insanity. Thus, it would
not result in post-acquittal commitment. If the trial resulted in a verdict of not guilty
due to insanity and a post-acquittal commitment, it would undermine the discipline
on the state’s exercise of coercive force through the criminal justice process. This
dilution of discipline on the state’s exercise of coercive force undermines the integ-
rity of the process and threatens the well-being of the public generally. Similarly,
MHC would not apply because neither a criminal charge a guilty plea nor the appli-
cation of a suspended sentence as a condition of probation would be consistent with
the applicable principles of retributive justice. Thus, application of the MHC would
converge with pursuit of criminal charges against Peter in ordinary criminal court
insofar as both subject Peter to unjustified criminal charges, and both undermine the
integrity of the process in a manner that endangers the public by diluting the disci-
pline on state intrusions into protected liberties through the rigorous application of
substantive standards and procedures.
Consider a variation of Peter in which Peter2 approaches the synagogue because
his hallucinatory voice of God orders him to convert the Jewish members. When
ordered to leave the property, he threatens to “smite the heathens” while waving
his staff in a threatening manner. He would then be subject to a criminal charge of
terroristic threats.40 He might reasonably be expected to be incompetent to proceed
at trial, however, requiring a period of commitment for treatment to restore com-
petence followed by an acquittal due to insanity and a post-acquittal commitment.
MHC would not provide a justified alternative because his competence to proceed
and plead guilty is highly questionable, and the guilty plea would be inappropri-
ate for one who lacked the capacities of criminal responsibility at the time of the
39
See supra notes 11–12 and accompanying text regarding the police power.
40
Model Penal Code, supra note 22, at § 211.3.
c onduct. Thus, a criminal sentence would not conform to the applicable principles
of retributive justice.
Practical concerns about facilitating access to a coordinated clinical treatment
program and avoiding costly and time-consuming criminal procedures might sup-
port civil commitment, rather than the criminal process, in circumstances such as
these in which the conduct establishing dangerousness could support a criminal
charge. Thus, civil commitment might promote the public interest in efficiency and
the converging interests of Peter2 and the public in timely application of effective
treatment.
In pursuing civil commitment, rather than the criminal process, however, we
should be aware of the risk that this alternative process might promote unjustified
limitations on liberty due to relatively less rigorous procedures and the tendency to
think of commitment and treatment as positive interventions that we do for the in-
dividual, rather than intrusions that we inflict upon individual. Thus, well-meaning
participants in the civil commitment process might tend to interpret the commitment
criteria of mental illness and dangerousness relatively broadly when it appears that
the subject of the commitment process would benefit from treatment. The criminal
trial process, in contrast, is likely to apply rigorous adversarial proceedings to clear-
ly establish the conduct and required culpability elements that constitute the crime
because conviction carries substantial punishment and condemnation rather than
the apparent benefit of clinically appropriate treatment. Thus, the criminal process
is designed to rigorously discipline state intrusions into protected individual liberty.
The expressive function of criminal trials for serious crimes might provide per-
suasive reason to pursue criminal prosecution, especially in circumstances in which
the conduct that establishes dangerousness constitutes a serious offense against the
victim. Criminal conviction and punishment condemns the crime as a wrong and
the offender as a culpable wrongdoer.41 An acquittal due to a successful insanity
defense exculpates the defendant as one who is not responsible for his crime, but in
doing so, it affirms that the conduct was a criminal wrongdoing. Thus, the verdict
reaffirms the condemnation of the conduct as a criminal wrong, and it vindicates the
standing of the victims by condemning the defendant’s conduct as a criminal wrong
against the victims.
Applying the criminal trial process arguably serves another important expressive
function because subjecting each psychologically impaired offender to the criminal
trial process expresses respect for the standing of the general category of people
with mental disorders. By requiring a criminal trial and persuasive evidence that
this defendant’s disorder renders this individual not responsible for this specific
conduct, we collectively avoid implicitly suggesting that all people with mental
disorders lack the capacities of criminal responsibility. Thus, we avoid a categorical
implication of non-responsibility that denies full standing to people with psycho-
logical impairment. Subjecting psychologically impaired defendants to the criminal
trial process clearly differentiates mental disorders generally from those specific
forms and degrees of impairment that render a specific individual not responsible
41
Schopp, supra note 30, at 144–148.
164 R. F. Schopp
for the specific criminal conduct that was related to his impairment in a manner
that undermines criminal responsibility. By applying criminal law and punishment
to those who manifest disorder but remain criminally responsible, we reaffirm the
standing of persons with mental illness generally as responsible agents. By exempt-
ing only a subset of impaired individuals who manifest severe impairment that ren-
ders them unable to function as responsible agents regarding the conduct at issue,
we reject a categorical denial of full standing for mentally ill individuals generally.
Summary
The CJS provides the primary institution designed to protect the well-being of the
public and individual liberty by reducing the rate of crime through a process that ap-
plies principles of retributive justice to those who possess the capacities of respon-
sible agency. Criminal punishment of those who have culpably engaged in criminal
conduct infringes upon the liberty and well-being of those who are convicted of
crimes, but individuals who culpably commit crimes forfeit their claim to equal
liberty and consideration. Insofar as MHCs are appropriately limited to those indi-
viduals who manifest impairment that reduces their culpability as compared to or-
dinary offenders who commit similar offenses but does not preclude competence to
proceed or criminal responsibility, they provide an institutional structure designed
to provide effective treatment for impaired offenders while explicitly reaffirming
that these individuals are responsible agents but significantly impaired in a manner
that reduces their culpability. Thus, MHCs provide an alternative path through the
CJS that promotes comparative justice and treatment expected to promote the well-
being of the offenders and of the public. Furthermore, this alternative path explicitly
rejects any implicit suggestion that all individuals with mental disorders lack stand-
ing as responsible agents.
Civil commitment or a criminal trial leading to a successful insanity defense
and post-acquittal commitment provide two alternative institutional structures for
the application of the police power to those who endanger others and manifest seri-
ous psychological impairment. Civil commitment provides the appropriate institu-
tional structure for individuals, such as Peter, who demonstrate serious impairment
and endanger others but have not engaged in criminal conduct. The application of
commitment in these circumstances raises concern regarding the risk that we col-
lectively might tend to intrude into protected liberty without sufficiently rigorous
standards and procedures if we tend to interpret commitment as an intervention
that provides treatment for the individual, rather than as an intrusion into protected
liberty.
A criminal trial resulting in an insanity acquittal and post-acquittal commitment
can reasonably be expected to promote rigorous application of the legal standards
of criminal responsibility and to avoid the implication that all psychologically im-
paired individuals lack full standing as responsible agents. This process also ex-
plicitly recognizes and condemns the criminal wrong inflicted upon the victim. The
extended process might have adverse effects on individual and societal well-being,
however, by delaying the application of a comprehensive treatment program. Thus,
applying the civil commitment process, rather than the criminal justice process, to
individuals such as Peter2, who commit relatively mild offenses, might represent a
reasonable alternative to the criminal justice process insofar as it promotes the con-
verging well-being of the public and of the individual without undermining respect
for the victims or for the general category of people who experience psychological
impairment.
In short, individuals can manifest various forms and degrees of impairment that
render them most appropriate for police power interventions through civil commit-
ment or through the criminal trial process, including MHCs or the insanity defense
and post-acquittal commitment. Recognizing that individuals who endanger others
due to psychological disorder can be appropriately addressed through a variety of
legal processes draws attention to the need for further clarification regarding the
categories and degrees of functional impairment that justify the application of spe-
cific institutions of police power intervention to specific individuals.
Expert Testimony and Research Regarding Psychological

Impairment and Culpability
Assume for the sake of this analysis that most courts and juries would agree that
Anderson’s disorder described previously as Anderson3 renders him a reasonable
candidate for the insanity defense because it renders him unable to know that his
conduct is wrongful.42 Assume further that most courts and jurors would agree that
the disorders manifested by East and Frant do not render them reasonable candi-
dates for the insanity defense. What differentiates Anderson’s disorder from that of
East and Frant, such that Anderson is unable to know that his conduct is wrong but
East and Frant are able to know that their sexual offenses against children (East)
and arson (Frant) are wrong, although they believe that their conduct is not wrong?
Compare Anderson3, East, and Frant to a member of a criminal gang who be-
lieves it is wrong to talk to the police, but it is not wrong to kill members of a rival
gang or witnesses to his criminal conduct who would talk to the police. Regard-
ing each of these individuals, expert testimony and relevant psychological research
might advance the ability of jurors, judges, or other legal actors to address the fol-
lowing questions. What, if any, kind of functional psychological impairment does
this individual manifest? How did that impairment influence his understanding,
reasoning, and decision making regarding the specific conduct at issue? What is the
significance of these effects for the defendant’s ability to meet the legal standards
of criminal competence, responsibility, and culpability at issue in the specific case?
To the extent that relevant information is available, expert witnesses can provide
descriptive and explanatory testimony that informs legal decision makers. Further
42
See Appendix regarding Anderson3.
166 R. F. Schopp
research can pursue more complete understanding of the relevant psychological

processes and impairment. In most circumstances, neither psychological research
nor expert testimony can provide conclusive answers to the relevant legal deter-
minations for two reasons. First, the legal standards often lack clarity regarding
the psychological capacities or impairment that are required. Some commentators
assert that standards for the insanity defense addressing the ability to appreciate
wrongfulness differ from standards addressing one’s ability to know that one’s con-
duct is wrongful, for example, but they do not provide clear explanations regarding
the relevant differences.43 Similarly, in Panetti vs. Quarterman, the Court has re-
cently referred to a requirement of rational understanding as necessary to fulfill the
retributive function in the context of competence to face execution.44 The opinion
provides no clear explanation, however, regarding either the type or degree of com-
prehension that qualifies as rational understanding for this purpose or the reasoning
that justifies requiring rational understanding as the most appropriate standard for
competence to face execution.45
Panetti had been diagnosed with a psychotic disorder involving delusions.46 He
reportedly believed that the government wanted to kill him to prevent him from
preaching the gospel.47 Compare him to a hypothetical variation of Frant who was
convicted of two counts of murder when the fire he set at the home of the interracial
couple caused the deaths of both members of that couple.48 Frant qualifies for a
diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, rather than a psychotic disorder. Frant
believes that the government wants to kill him to suppress the growing political
influence of the Church of the Aryan Father. It seems very likely that the Courts
would reject any claim that Frant’s personality disorder and beliefs would render
him incompetent to face execution, but the Court’s opinions provide no clear expla-
nation that describes or justifies an appropriate standard of rational understanding
for this purpose.
Second, in addition to lacking clarity, some legal standards, such as appreciation
or lack of rational understanding, may contain justificatory components that extend
beyond psychological expertise. The Panetti opinion, for example, suggests that
Panetti’s delusional beliefs render him incompetent to face execution at least par-
tially because they prevent the execution from serving the retributive purpose.49 The
opinion provides no clear account of that retributive purpose or explanation regard-
ing the quality or degree of understanding that would fulfill that purpose. Thus, it
provides no clear guidance regarding the quality or degree of cognitive capacity that
constitutes competence for this purpose. Arguably, the decision maker must make
the justificatory judgment that the offender understands the reason for his execution
43
LaFave, supra note 22, at § 7.5.
44
Panetti vs. Quartermann, 127 S.Ct. 2842 (2007).
45
Id. at 2860–2862.
46
Id. at 2862.
47
Id. at 2859.
48
49
Panetti, 127 S.Ct., at 2860–2862.
in a manner and to a degree that justifies execution. Thus, psychological research

and testimony can promote understanding of the individual’s psychological capaci-
ties and impairment, but it can rarely provide a sufficient basis for expert opinions
that the defendant does, or does not, meet the applicable legal standard because such
conclusions almost always require justificatory judgments that extend beyond clini-
cal expertise. These justificatory judgments require integration of the psychological
research and assessment that experts can provide with judgments regarding the sig-
nificance of that research and assessment for justifications of punishment embodied
in a specific legal institution. The latter integration extends beyond the expertise of
expert witnesses.
In some circumstances, expert testimony explaining how the individual devel-
oped the impairment and the individual’s awareness of its potential effects might
also be relevant. In People vs. Decina, a driver was criminally convicted for the
death of pedestrians who were killed by the car he was driving when he experi-
enced a seizure, lost control of the car, and the car ran into the pedestrians on the
sidewalk. Although his seizure impaired consciousness and motor control at the
time of the accident that caused the deaths, his decision to operate the motor vehicle
with awareness that he was subject to unanticipated seizures constituted criminal
negligence regarding the causation of the deaths.50 If a court were to consider only
a defendant’s psychological state at the time of the offense, his impaired conscious-
ness and motor control at the time of the seizure might reasonably have prevented
him from fulfilling any culpability element or the voluntary act requirement.51 He
was held criminally responsible, however, because the court considered his history
of seizures that rendered him aware of the serious risk he was creating at the time
he chose to drive the car despite his ongoing vulnerability to seizures that impaired
his consciousness and his ability to competently direct his decision making and his
physical behavior. In circumstances such as these, expert testimony that informs
the decision maker regarding the nature and degree of impairment at the time of the
event, the risk that such impairment would occur, and the circumstances that might
provide the individual with notice that he was at risk for a seizure would be relevant
to the determination of various levels of culpability, such as knowing, reckless, or
negligent mental states.52
Consider also common approaches to intoxication as a defense to criminal con-
viction and punishment. As a general matter, involuntary intoxication can serve as
a defense to a criminal charge if it negates the mental state required by the offense
definition or if it causes the individual to fulfill the requirements of the insanity
defense in that jurisdiction.53 Voluntary intoxication, in contrast, exculpates only
if it prevents the individual from fulfilling the mental state required by the offense
definition.54 Voluntary intoxication carries narrower exculpatory significance than
50
People vs. Decina, 138 N.E. 2d 799, 802–804 (1956).
51
Model Penal Code, supra note 22, at §§ 2.01, 2.02.
52
Id. at § 2.02.
53
Id. at § 2.08; Lafave, supra note 22, at § 9.5 (g).
54
Id. at § 2.08 (1); Lafave, id. at 9.5–9.5(c).
168 R. F. Schopp
involuntary intoxication because the individual is responsible for inducing the im-
paired state. This rule arguably resembles the decision in Decina insofar as both
Decina and the voluntarily intoxicated individual are held responsible for creating
the condition that contributed to the resulting harm.55 Voluntary intoxication differs
from Decina’s circumstances in that the voluntarily intoxicated defendant created
his impaired capacity. Decina, in contrast, did not create his seizure disorder, but
he culpably created the risk to others by driving with awareness of the risk that he
would experience a seizure that would render him unable to maintain safe control
of the vehicle. Thus, Decina and the voluntarily intoxicated offender consciously
made informed decisions that created the circumstances in which they endangered
others and in which their impaired capacities rendered them unable to responsibly
prevent themselves from causing the harm.
In both cases, relevant expert testimony might inform the legal decision maker
regarding the nature and severity of the impairment, the probability and severity
of the risk created, and the individual’s ability to accurately anticipate that risk.
The conclusion that the conduct involved in becoming intoxicated or in deciding
to drive with the risk of seizures was sufficient to constitute negligence or reck-
lessness, however, requires an assessment of the sufficiency of the risk required to
justify holding the defendant criminally culpable. Regarding recklessness, the de-
fendant must have consciously disregarded “a substantial and unjustifiable risk.”56
Regarding negligence, the failure to perceive the risk must have involved “a gross
deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the
actor’s situation.”57 Thus, descriptive and explanatory expert testimony regarding
the degree of risk, the defendant’s awareness of that risk, and the manner in which
that risk was generated by the offender might inform the decision maker’s under-
standing of the relevant matters. Expert testimony that either defendant was or was
not reckless or negligent would extend beyond the range of expertise, however,
because these determinations require justificatory judgments that fall within the
responsibility of the court or the jury and beyond the range of expert testimony.
Similar consideration of the manner in which a person develops psychological
impairment might be considered relevant to the degree to which the disorder alters,
or does not alter, the individual’s blameworthiness for acting in a manner consistent
with that disorder. Assume, for example, that East gradually developed his sexual
attraction to children and his inclination to act upon that attraction by viewing child
pornography and then approaching and engaging children in activities that involved
increasing physical contact. East is of average intelligence, and this pattern of con-
duct provides him with increasingly explicit awareness that he is developing stron-
ger sexual attraction to children and engaging in gradually more intimate contact,
culminating in overtly sexual contact. Contrast East to the mildly mentally retarded
East2, who goes to a playground that is often occupied by young adolescents and
gradually becomes involved in consensual sexual activity with 13- and 14-year-old
55
Lafave, id. at § 9.5 (c).
56
Model Penal Code, supra note 22, at § 2.02(2; c).
57
Id. at § 2.02 (2; d).
girls.58 In contrast to East, East2 lacks the capacities needed to recognize relatively
early in the process that he is gradually approximating criminal activity. He also
lacks the capacities needed to recognize the seriousness of his misbehavior and of
the potential harm it might cause.
A sentencing court might reasonably conclude that East and East2 both fulfill the
offense elements for sexual offenses against children, but that court might conclude
that they differ substantially in their degree of blameworthiness.59 The court might
reach that conclusion in part because East gradually developed his pedophilia in
circumstances that provided him with explicit notice that he was engaging in con-
duct that promoted his sexual attraction to children and the willingness to act upon
that attraction. East2, in contrast, lacked the capacity to recognize the manner and
degree to which he was developing these inclinations. Although he was aware that
the conduct was forbidden, he also lacked the capacities to understand the potential
severity of the harm caused and of the criminal punishment. Thus, expert testimony
that informs the court regarding the manner in which each of these defendants de-
veloped their sexual attraction to children and gradually increased their willingness
to act upon that desire has the potential to improve the ability of the courts to assess
their degree of blameworthiness for the specific offenses and for developing the
sexual inclinations that increased the risk that they would commit these offenses. A
putatively expert opinion that the individual was or was not sufficiently culpable to
meet the requirements of an offense definition or a specific degree of punishment
would extend beyond professional expertise, however, because it would require as-
sessment of the justificatory significance of the defendant’s condition.
In short, relevant expert testimony might provide the courts with description and
explanation regarding the nature and degree of impairment, the manner in which
that impairment influenced the criminal conduct, and the manner in which that in-
dividual developed that impairment. Research that advanced the understanding of
various categories of impairment, including the factors that contribute to the devel-
opment of that impairment and the manner in which it influences behavior in vari-
ous circumstances, has the potential to enhance the quality of expert testimony. The
courts might apply that expertise as relevant to the appropriate form of intervention
and to the severity of punishment that is proportionate to the blameworthiness of
each individual who is convicted of a criminal offense.
Expert Testimony and Research Regarding Dangerousness
I have argued previously that when dangerousness is addressed as a criterion that

justifies a specific form of legal intervention into protected liberty, the determina-
tion of dangerousness requires empirical and justificatory judgments. The empiri-
cal assessment of risk includes estimates of the probability and severity of risk of
58
59
Model Penal Code, supra note 22, at §§ 213.3 (1; a), 213.4 (6).
170 R. F. Schopp
harm presented by this person in the circumstances as well as explanation regarding

the manner in which this person generates this risk and regarding the reasonably
expected effects of various interventions designed to manage that risk. The justifi-
catory components of the determination of dangerousness require the quantitative
judgment that the risk is sufficient in probability and severity to justify the specific
legal intrusion at issue and the qualitative judgment that the individual generates
that risk in a manner that justifies that specific intervention.60
Some civil commitment statutes require dangerousness due to mental illness as a
necessary condition to justify commitment. Other statutes require mental illness and
dangerousness but do not explicitly require the causal connection between mental
illness and dangerousness.61 Insofar as they are interpreted and applied as written,
statutes in the first category require an explicit finding of a causal connection be-
tween the individual’s impairment and the risk he presents, but the statutes in the
second category require only the concurrence of mental illness and dangerousness.
Consider Gant, who has a long criminal history involving substance abuse, sell-
ing illegal drugs, and violence. He eventually develops a delusional disorder associ-
ated with his extended pattern of drug abuse and his ongoing conflict with compet-
ing drug dealers and law enforcement.62 His disorder includes delusions regarding a
conspiracy among competing drug dealers and some of his family members to steal
his drugs and accumulated money. He is unable to ascertain which family members
are involved, but he is certain that some have conspired against him with rival drug
gangs. He develops complex plans to conceal his drugs and money from family
members. He monitors various family members in an ongoing effort to identify the
conspirators. He continues committing crimes for profit as before. These crimes
involve drug sales and criminal violence to intimidate drug users, witnesses, and
members of rival drug gangs who are competitors in sales.
His delusional disorder and criminal violence would be sufficient to establish
civil commitment in a jurisdiction that required mental illness and dangerousness.
Arguably, his delusional disorder and violence should not be sufficient for civil
commitment in a jurisdiction that required dangerousness due to mental illness be-
cause his violence appears to be the product of the same motives and conditions that
produced his extended pattern of criminal conduct. Thus, he is seriously impaired
and dangerous, but he is not dangerous due to his psychological impairment.
Arguably, a criminal trial would be more consistent with the applicable prin-
ciples of justice because he commits serious crimes, and his disorder does not un-
dermine his culpability for those crimes. Thus, his offenses merit the condemnation
inherent in criminal punishment and he merits condemnation as a culpable offender.
60
Schopp, R. F., Two-edged swords, dangerousness, and expert testimony in capital sentencing,
30 L. & Psychology Rev. 57, 72–80 (2006).
61
See e.g., Revised Statutes of Nebraska § 71–908 (2009; requiring a causal connection between
mental illness and dangerousness); Wisconsin Statutes Annotated § 51.20 (1; 2008; requiring men-
tal illness, drug dependence, or developmental disability and dangerousness, but not explicitly
requiring a causal connection).
62
Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest that treatment to ameliorate his disor-

der would reduce his inclination to commit crimes because his pattern of criminal
behavior began before he developed his disorder and continues during his current
period of impairment. Thus, a criminal trial and sentence appears more likely than
treatment to promote the well-being of the public because incarceration promotes
incapacitation.
Suppose Gant murders the city police chief because he has accurately learned
that the chief has identified him as a target for arrest and prosecution. Gant is con-
victed of premeditated murder in a jurisdiction that authorizes capital punishment
for a limited number of offenses, including premeditated murder. The state statute
requires the finding of at least one statutory aggravating factor to render the of-
fender eligible for capital punishment, and those factors include the killing of a law
enforcement officer and dangerousness.63 Gant’s attorney presents evidence of his
delusional disorder and argues that this disorder qualifies as a mitigating factor for
the purpose of capital sentencing for the murder of the police chief.64
Gant’s case raises a series of questions regarding the significance of mental ill-
ness and dangerousness for capital sentencing. First, what type and degree of psy-
chological impairment should carry mitigating significance for sentencing? Second,
in what manner should that impairment be related to the crime in order to mitigate
the appropriate punishment for that crime? Third, what degree of risk, including
probability and severity, should be sufficient to qualify as dangerousness for the
purpose of capital sentencing? Fourth, are the aggravating factor of dangerousness
and the mitigating factor of mental illness most defensibly interpreted as indepen-
dent or as related? That is, should dangerousness be a legitimate aggravating factor
for capital sentencing regardless of the explanation for the risk presented by the
offender? Should it matter for the purpose of capital sentencing whether the risk
presented by the offender is a product of his psychological impairment that distorts
his capacities of responsible agency, such as a response to paranoid delusions, or
whether his dangerousness is due to personality factors, such as lack of empathy,
that do not distort his capacity for comprehension or reasoning? Similarly, should
various forms of psychological impairment fulfill legitimate mitigating functions,
regardless of their specific form or whether they were a causal factor in the murder?
Although capital punishment draws attention to these considerations, they are
relevant to noncapital sentencing and in other contexts. Compare, for example, cap-
ital sentencing with civil commitment. Are there good reasons why dangerousness
and mental illness should be addressed as independent criteria or as related criteria
for each purpose? What justificatory significance do mental illness and danger-
ousness carry in each context, and what relationship between mental illness and
dangerousness, if any, does that justification require? Psychological research that
promotes the ability to understand the manner in which risk is exacerbated by vari-
ous forms of psychological inclinations or impairment might inform the ability to
63
See e.g., Wyo. Stat. Ann. §§ 6-2-102 (h; viii), (xi; 2011).
64
Id. at § 6-2-102 (j; vi; 2011).
172 R. F. Schopp
accurately assess the degree to which an individual’s psychological traits or impair-

ment increases or decreases his responsibility for the risk he presents.
Consider Gant2, who is similar to Gant, except that he had delusional beliefs that
the police chief he murdered was targeting him for arrest and prosecution because
the chief was running the police department as a competing drug supplier. Accord-
ing to Gant2’s delusional interpretation of events, each arrest of a drug dealer and
seizure of illegal drugs was part of the chief’s effort to eliminate competition and
to secure a greater supply of drugs that the chief could then sell on the streets.
Each news report of a drug-related arrest confirms his delusional belief that all law
enforcement officers, including the police chief and prison guards, are part of the
conspiracy to kill him in order to eliminate competition in the illegal drug market.
Gant and Gant2 are similar in that both engage in similar patterns of criminal ac-
tivity, including the recent murder of a law enforcement officer, and both experience
ongoing delusional disorders. It seems likely that reasonable jurors would agree
that Gant knew that his killing of the police chief was wrong according to standards
embodied in law or according to widely held societal standards of wrongfulness.
It might be less clear whether reasonable jurors would agree that Gant2 knew that
his conduct was wrong for the purpose of applying the insanity defense. If jurors
concluded that both Gant and Gant2 were guilty of capital offenses, they could
confront decisions regarding dangerousness as part of the capital sentencing deter-
minations in some jurisdictions.65 Insofar as risk assessment research is available,
experts might be able to provide relevant testimony regarding the rate of recorded
violence by convicted murders generally or by those with delusional disorders. Ex-
pert testimony might be able to provide some explanation regarding the process
through which delusions influence the risk of violence in identifiable circumstances
and the likely effects of treatment or risk management on that risk.
The judgment that a particular level of risk is, or is not, sufficient to justify a
determination of dangerousness for the purpose of applying capital sentencing to a
particular individual extends beyond the scope of expertise, however, because that
determination requires a justificatory judgment that the probability and severity of
risk, as well as the source of that risk, is sufficient to justify enhanced punishment.
Reasonable jurors might conclude, for example, that Gant’s willingness to kill on
the basis of his delusional belief that he was targeted by the police chief for ar-
rest and prosecution supports a determination of dangerousness for the purpose of
capital sentencing and provides no mitigation. In contrast, reasonable jurors might
conclude that Gant2’s delusional belief that the police chief was conspiring to kill
him for criminal purposes mitigates his culpability for capital sentencing although
it might also support the conclusion that he presents an elevated risk to others. I do
not claim here that these conclusions are necessarily the most appropriate conclu-
sions. Rather, the central point is that these conclusions involve justificatory judg-
ments regarding the significance of the level of risk and the manner in which the of-
fender generates that risk for a specific legal determination. Such judgments extend
beyond clinical expertise or empirical research. Thus, descriptive and explanatory
65
See e.g., notes 63–64 and accompanying text.
testimony reflecting appropriate research and clinical assessment can inform these
judgments, but conclusions for specific legal applications extend beyond clinical or
empirical expertise.
Similarly, some Supreme Court capital punishment opinions include retribution
as one legitimate purpose of punishment and require only that punishment serve
some legitimate purpose. Other opinions appear to address retribution as a limiting
principle that defines the maximum severity of punishment.66 Arguably, if retribu-
tion is a limiting principle and if the offender is dangerous due to mental illness
that impairs his capacities of criminal responsibility and that he is not responsible
for developing, then his dangerousness should not serve as an aggravating factor. If
retribution is a limiting principle and the offender is dangerous due to personality
traits that do not undermine responsibility, or for which he is responsible for devel-
oping because, for example, he was aware that those traits are a predictable product
of abusing certain substances that he continued to abuse, then the risk he presents
is an aggravating factor for which he is responsible. Alternately, if retribution and
incapacitation are two independent justifications for punishment, and this offender
is dangerous due to his mental illness that does not preclude criminal responsibility,
then the risk he presents serves as an aggravating factor relevant to capital sentenc-
ing intended to serve the purpose of incapacitation.
These examples illustrate a more general point. Appropriately designed and ex-
ecuted risk-assessment research can provide a reliable basis for descriptive and ex-
planatory expert testimony relevant to determinations of dangerousness for various
legal purposes. In addition to investigating the correlation between various catego-
ries of impairment and risk of harm in various circumstances, appropriate research
can enhance our ability to explain the manner in which various types of functional
impairment contribute to the risk presented by individuals who experience such
impairment. Even if the most reliable research supported the conclusion that East
and East2, or Gant and Gant2, represented similarly elevated risk of recidivism,
however, the differences in their psychological capacities and pathology that con-
tributed to that risk might justify different forms or degrees of legal intervention.
Similarly, different explanations regarding the manner in which they developed the
psychological propensities that contribute to their elevated risk might justify differ-
ent patterns of legal intervention. Conclusions regarding the most justified form and
degree of intervention necessarily extend beyond the scope of empirical research
and testimony, but research that advances understanding of the manner in which
various types of impairment develop and contribute to risk can enhance the ability
of expert witnesses to provide relevant explanatory testimony and the ability of
legal decision makers to pursue just outcomes and appropriate dispositions.
The sentencer must evaluate this information for the purpose of deciding wheth-
er the risk the offender presents is quantitatively and qualitatively sufficient to jus-
tify capital punishment for Gant or Gant2. Similarly, legal decision makers must
make corresponding decisions for the purpose of noncapital sentencing, diversion
66
Compare, e.g., Gregg vs. Georgia, 428 US 153, 182–186 (1976; plurality opinion) with Califor-
nia vs. Brown, 479 US 538, 545 (1987; O’Connor, J., concurring).
174 R. F. Schopp
to MHCs, civil commitment, or other alternative interventions. In each case, ex-

pert testimony might provide descriptive and explanatory information regarding
the degree and severity of the risk, the relationship between that risk and various
characteristics of the individual and the circumstances, and the likely effectiveness
of various risk-prevention strategies. Empirical research might enhance the un-
derstanding that provides the basis for that testimony. Case-specific legal decision
makers must determine whether the risk presented by this individual justifies the
specific legal intervention at issue according to the applicable legal standards and
principles. Legislators can consider relevant research in formulating legislation that
sets the applicable rules in that jurisdiction.
Conclusion
The CJS, MHCs, and civil commitment are institutional structures designed to ap-
ply the police power in order to protect the well-being of the public in a manner that
conforms to the applicable principles of justice. Individuals who manifest signifi-
cant psychological impairment and harm or endanger others raise important con-
cerns regarding interventions designed to protect the public well-being in a manner
that conforms to the applicable principles of justice as well as other values and
practical concerns raised by these interventions. MHCs provide an alternative path
through the CJS for offenders who are competent to proceed and criminally respon-
sible but suffer impairment that renders them less blameworthy than unimpaired
offenders who commit similar offenses. Insofar as MHCs develop an ongoing co-
operative relationship with mental-health clinicians who can provide assessment
and treatment, they enhance the ability of the courts and the treatment providers to
cooperatively promote the well-being of the offender and of the public consistent
with the applicable principles of justice.67
Civil commitment provides an appropriate institutional structure for those, such
as Peter, who present a substantial risk of harm to others due to mental illness but
have not yet committed a criminal offense.68 A more complex set of considerations
becomes relevant regarding the most appropriate form of coercive intervention for
those who commit criminal offenses associated with significant psychological im-
pairment. To the extent that an offender’s impairment renders him incompetent to
proceed in the criminal process or not criminally responsible for the conduct at is-
sue, a guilty plea and criminal sentence in MHC subjects the offender to unjustified
punishment and undermines the integrity of the process. Following restoration of
competence to proceed, a criminal trial resulting in a verdict of not guilty due to in-
sanity and post-acquittal commitment arguably results in the most justified outcome
and maintains discipline on the exercise of coercive force under the police power.
Furthermore, the verdict of not guilty due to insanity vindicates the standing of the
67
Schopp, supra note 7.
68
See supra notes 38–40 and accompanying text addressing Peter.
victim by affirming that the offender’s conduct was a criminal wrong against the
victim. Finally, by addressing most individuals with mental disorders who engage
in criminal conduct through the CJS, we vindicate the standing of the general cat-
egory of individuals with mental disorders as responsible agents.
The criminal process can continue for an extended period, however, especially if
the offender requires treatment to restore competence to proceed. Thus, particularly
for relatively minor offenses, civil commitment might provide a more efficient path
to treatment expected to promote the well-being of the offender and of the public.
In short, selecting the most defensible application of the police power to individuals
who manifest significant psychological impairment and harm or endanger others re-
quires consideration of at least the following: the applicable principles of retributive
and comparative justice; the individual’s competence to proceed and responsibility
for the harm done; the severity of the harm done to the victim and the importance of
the expressive function of criminal trial and verdict as condemnation of the criminal
conduct and vindication of the standing of the victim; respect for the standing of
people with mental disorders by applying the CJS to those who retain the relevant
capacities of competence and responsibility; and maintaining discipline on the gov-
ernment application of coercive force.
Appendix: Offender Examples
The offenders are listed in the order in which they initially appear in the text:
Anderson: schizophrenic disorder; destroys furnace in response to hallucinatory
orders from God
Baker: severe but not psychotic depression; steals food from neighbor’s base-
ment
Anderson1: schizophrenic disorder; God’s commands; society would agree
Anderson2: schizophrenic disorder; God’s commands; society would not agree
due to Satan’s influence
East: pedophilia; sex offenses against children; aware that law and society con-
demn as wrong; disagrees
Frant: antisocial personality disorder; criminal history; prison; arson to prevent
miscegenation
Anderson3: schizophrenic disorder; God’s commands; conduct is wrong and
morally required
East2: mild mental retardation; sex offenses with 13- and 14-year-old girls
Peter: schizophrenic disorder; God’s commands; baptizing Jews; “Abraham and
Isaac”
Peter2: schizophrenic disorder; God’s commands; baptizing Jews; waves staff;
“smite the heathens”
Gant: recent delusional disorder; ongoing pattern of criminal conduct; murders
police chief to avoid arrest
Gant2: recent delusional disorder; ongoing pattern of criminal conduct; murders
police chief to prevent chief from killing him
Chapter 7
That’s What Friends Are For: Mentors,
Lawyers Assistance Program (LAP) Lawyers,
Therapeutic Jurisprudence, and Clients
with Mental Illness
David B. Wexler
This chapter serves first to introduce briefly the concept of therapeutic jurispru-
dence (TJ)—the study of the impact of the law, legal procedures, and the role of le-
gal actors on the emotional well-being of those affected by the law. It explains how
TJ practices of lawyers and judges often find application in special problem-solving
or ‘solution-focused’ courts—such as drug treatment courts, mental health courts,
domestic violence courts, DWI courts, and most recently veterans courts. Many of
those courts also have volunteers—often clients who have themselves successfully
completed programs in such courts—who now serve as mentors for clients newly-
admitted to those courts.
The chapter continues, however, by taking the “mentor” concept to the profes-
sional level: speaking of lawyers and judges who have themselves confronted issues
of drug and alcohol addiction and mental illness. In prior work, the author opened
up this topic principally in the context of drug and alcohol addiction. Here, that
work is summarized but the analysis is broadened to focus principally on lawyers
who have had their own struggles with mental illness—a newer area of consider-
ation opened up principally by a few law professors brave enough to come forth and
to tell their stories of struggles with mental illness.
The chapter then compares these lawyers and their “mentoring” opportunities
with the work of lawyers with addiction issues and begins a discussion of how they
The International Network on Therapeutic Jurisprudence maintains a website (with an

extensive bibliography) at www.therapeuticjurisprudence.org and an active facebook page at
www.facebook.com/TherapeuticJurisprudence. Thanks to Marjorie Silver, Michael Perlin, and
Peggy Hora for comments on an earlier draft.
D. B. Wexler ()
School of Law, University of Puerto Rico, P.O. Box 23349, UPR Station, San Juan,
PR 00931-3349, USA
e-mail: davidBwexler@yahoo.com
University of Arizona, Tucson, USA

178 D. B. Wexler
may serve, often in a “second chair” advisory capacity, in civil commitment cases,
mental health court cases, veterans court cases, and the like.
The field of inquiry of Therapeutic Jurisprudence (TJ)1 developed at about the
same time as Drug Treatment Courts (DTCs), but from different sources. TJ began
in legal academia in 1987, with law and psychology scholarship that would have a
hoped-for-real-world application.2 DTCs, by contrast, began in Dade County, Flor-
ida in 1989, and originated atheoretically by frustrated, practical, creative, intuitive
judges eager to find an alternative to revolving door justice in the area of addicts and
resulting criminality. The two developments were brought together in 1999, in a law
review article by DTC judges Peggy Hora and William Schma,3 and the perspec-
tives have been intimately connected ever since.
Because of this symbiotic relationship, DTCs apply many principles consistent
with or indeed directly derived from TJ.4 But TJ principles, though comfortably em-
ployed in DTC and other similar “problem-solving” or “solution-focused” courts, are
not “tied” to such courts, and I have repeatedly urged their general judicial applica-
tion, especially in criminal cases.5 For example, one of the most important sections
of my edited book, Rehabilitating Lawyers: Principles of Therapeutic Jurisprudence
for Criminal Law Practice,6 gathers actual techniques used by lawyers practicing TJ.7
A number of these practices are what I have called “family-friendly,”8 meaning
they draw on family, friends, and neighbors to facilitate a disposition requested by a
1
See references and resources in note 1, supra.
2
See David B. Wexler, Therapeutic Jurisprudence Forum: The Development of Therapeutic Ju-
risprudence: From Theory to Practice, 68 Rev. Jur. U.P.R. 691, 693 (1999; first essay written in
1987); David B. Wexler, Therapeutic Jurisprudence: The Law as a Therapeutic Agent (1990); Da-
vid B. Wexler & Bruce J. Winick, Essays in Therapeutic Jurisprudence (1991).
3
Peggy Hora, et al., Therapeutic Jurisprudence and the Drug Treatment Court Movement: Revolu-
tionizing the Criminal Justice System’s Response to Drug Abuse and Crime in America, 74 Notre
Dame L. Rev. 439 (1999).
4
Susan Goldberg, Judging for the Twenty-first Century: A Problem-Solving Approach (2005),
online version available at: http://www.nji.ca/nji/Public/documents/Judgingfor21scenturyDe.pdf;
Michael S. King, Solution Focused Judging Judicial Bench Book (2009), online version avail-
able at: http://www.aija.org.au/Solution%20Focused%20BB/SFJ%20BB.pdf; David B. Wexler
& Michael S. King, Promoting Societal and Juridical Receptivity to Rehabilitation: The Role
of Therapeutic Jurisprudence (2013), online version available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/
papers.cfm?abstract_id=1722278.
5
A case I typically use as a TJ criminal law practice teaching tool is Riggs, involving a client with
paranoia. USA vs. Riggs, 370 F.3d 382 (4th Cir. 2004), vacated by 125 S. Ct. 1015 (2005). The
case is used as a springboard for discussion in David B. Wexler (ed.), Rehabilitating Lawyers:
Principles of Therapeutic Jurisprudence for Criminal Law Practice (2008), hereinafter cited as
Rehabilitating Lawyers. The author, along with US Judge Michael Jones and Australia Magistrate
Pauline Spencer, is now involved in a “Mainstreaming TJ” project with a Hague Institute Innovat-
ing Justice Project known as “Integrating the Healing Approach to Criminal Law,” available at:
http://www.innovatingjustice.com/innovations/integrating-the-healing-approach-to-criminal-law.
6
Id.
7
Id. at 143–255. As will discuss later, my hope is to open TJ practice and service opportunities to
attorneys both in and out of the area of problem-solving courts.
8
David B. Wexler, Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Family-Friendly Criminal Law Practice, 17
Barry Law Review 7 (2011), online version available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1753265. See
7 That’s What Friends Are For: Mentors, Lawyers Assistance Program … 179
client and his or her lawyer. In the book, for example, one illustration details how the
law firm representing a defendant sought a “community” sanction (along the lines of
probation) by submitting letters signed by neighbors that they would have no problem
with such a disposition and that, in fact, they would be willing to report the defendant
if he were not in compliance with the imposed conditions.9 Another example, by a
lawyer representing young adult clients suffering from fetal alcohol spectrum dis-
order, explains how the lawyer gathers together a community support group to help
insure the compliance of the client with imposed probation conditions.10 And in an
example to be discussed in a bit more detail in a later section, Dallas attorney John
McShane writes about how, at the behest of the family of a jailed family member with
drug and alcohol problems, McShane conducted what he calls a “jailhouse interven-
tion,” speaking to the client about treatment options and then facilitating the incarcer-
ated person’s release on a treatment bond from jail to a high-quality treatment center.11
Nonetheless, despite their increasing use in general judicial contexts, TJ prin-
ciples remain particularly popular in problem-solving or solution-focused courts.
One such court is mental health court, which unlike the atheoretical origin of DTCs,
arose explicitly as an application of TJ principles to persons with apparent mental
health issues charged with the commission of rather minor offenses.12
TJ principles are now widely employed in DTCs, mental health courts, domes-
tic violence courts,13 and, more recently, in the newly formed veterans courts.14
Veterans courts are interesting and important because they typically deal with the
issues confronted by each of the previously mentioned courts: posttraumatic stress
also Susan L. Brooks & Robert G. Madden, Relationship-Centered Lawyering: Social Science
Theory for Transforming Legal Practice (2010).
9
Rehabilitating Lawyers, supra note 6, at 185 (contribution by Karine Langley).
10
Id. at 186 (contribution by David Boulding).
11
Id. at 193 (contribution by John McShane).
12
In the words of Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: “The first (TJ) problem-solving court of its kind
in the country, the primary goal of The Mental Health Court was diversion from the criminal
justice system into community based care, whenever possible. Yet, the court needed a philo-
sophical and pragmatic construct through which its goals, standard of practice and values could
effectively be communicated and understood. TJ was adopted for that purpose.” Hon Ginger
Lerner-Wren, Justice Speaks: Applying Therapeutic Jurisprudence (TJ) in a Court of General
Jurisdiction, Guest Column, May 2008, www.therapeuticjurisprudence.org. Note that the fact that
mental health courts began as an application of TJ does not suggest that mental health courts
were “derived” from a normative framework of TJ. See Lea Johnston, Theorizing Mental Health
Courts, Washington University Law Review, Vol. 89, version available online at: http://ssrn.
com/abstract=1710882. Simply stated, if, for whatever reason, the establishment of a mental
health court appears to be a worthwhile idea, the use of TJ principles can aid in the effective
functioning of such a court.
13
Bruce J. Winick, Applying the Law Therapeutically in Domestic Violence Cases, 69 UMKC L.
Rev. 33 (2000). See also Judging in a Therapeutic Key: Therapeutic Jurisprudence and the Courts
116–123 (Bruce J. Winick & David B. Wexler, eds; 2003; contributions by Randal Fritzler and
Leonore Simon). And see Carrie J. Petrucci, The Judge-Defendant Interaction: Toward a Shared
Respect Process, in id at 148–155.
14
William H. McMichael, The Battle on the Home Front: Special Courts Turn to Vets to Help
Other Vets, ABAJ, Nov. 2011, online at: http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/the_battle_
on_the_home_front_special_courts_turn_to_vets_to_help_other_vets/.
180 D. B. Wexler
disorder (PTSD), a condition widely suffered by veterans, often leads to issues of

drug and alcohol abuse, driving while intoxicated (DWI), domestic violence, home-
lessness, and similar legal problems.15
As I hope will become clear later on, my discussion of TJ both in and out of
special courts is designed to introduce the reader to TJ ideas and to their application
generally; my goal, as will be seen, is to recruit additional lawyers to TJ practice
opportunities and pro bono activities, whether in special courts or otherwise.
Mentors
Many of the problem-solving courts recruit mentors to help clients navigate their
way through the court process. Indeed, having a veteran mentor seems an essential
feature of the new veterans courts.16
But other problem-solving courts—like DTCs and dependency drug courts
(where the clients are not facing criminal charges but are threatened with losing
their parental rights)—draw on 12-step and AA insights and practices and use as
mentors persons who have themselves successfully navigated their way through and
who have successfully graduated from such courts. Many DTCs, for example, have
formed “alumni associations” of former clients who wish to express their gratitude
by volunteering to assist new clients. Some—like the court in Toronto—even em-
ploy a “peer support worker.” And dependency drug courts and family wellness
courts have made excellent use of “mentor moms”17 and “mentor parents”18 who
orient and help new clients—many of them addicted single mothers threatened with
the loss of their children—to live drug-free, to improve their parenting skills, and to
reunite with their children.
These sorts of mentors have empathy with the new clients and have knowledge
and experience to share with them. Their past histories likewise give them credibil-
ity with their clients; they can serve as excellent role models, can be a support sys-
tem, can give practical and important advice, and can serve as a source of hope—a
remarkably important therapeutic ingredient in successful recovery.19 And as we
15
In fact, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has objected to the special treatment accorded
veterans, as opposed to the population at large, facing legal charges relating to drugs, alcohol,
mental health issues, and domestic violence. Id.
16
Id. Ethnic mentors are often important too. Thus, in New Zealand, where Maori are dramatically
overrepresented in the criminal justice and parole system, proposals have emerged to have Maori
elders orient Maori prisoners to the correctional system and to be involved in the parole or reentry
planning of such inmates. Valmaine Toki, Are Parole Boards working or is it time for an Indig-
enous Reentry Court? International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 39 (2011), pp. 230–248.
17
Judging in a Therapeutic Key, supra note 14, at 39, 41 (contribution of Judge Leonard P. Ed-
wards).
18
Thanks to Allen Korenstein, a lawyer with the Dependency Advocacy Center in San Jose, Cali-
fornia, for providing information on that court’s mentor parent program and the valuable role that
fathers have brought to the process.
19
Michael D. Clark, A Change-Focused Approach for Judges, in Judging in a Therapeutic Key,
supra note 14, at 137, 142–144.
will see in the section immediately following, lawyers and judges may sometimes
themselves satisfy all of these roles: I am speaking of lawyers in recovery.
Lawyers in Recovery
Client hope has also been boosted by hearing success stories of members of the
legal profession who have themselves struggled with issues of alcoholism and drug
use. For example, a recent Chicago Tribune piece tells the story of Elizabeth John-
son, now a Will County Assistant State’s Attorney, but, 10 years earlier, herself a
client in Will County’s drug court.20 According to the article,
When the next group of Will County’s drug court participants graduate in March, Assistant
State’s Attorney Elizabeth Johnson will be the one to tell them the charges against them
have been dropped. For Johnson, it will be a special moment. The newly hired prosecutor
will be able to tell the graduates that just over 10 years ago, she was one of them.21
And in the Philadelphia area, drug court graduates heard from—and gave a standing
ovation to—John Duffy, a 76-year-old criminal defense lawyer, 35 years sober, who
received an award for his “tireless efforts to assist others with recovery.”22
There are moving and inspiring stories from judges as well. With considerable
trepidation, Judge Michael J. Murphy wrote of his long-standing struggle with al-
coholism.23 The trepidation came in part because “there is always the fear of a
possible relapse,”24 and he could, after all, “remain anonymous and not be subject
to the watchful eyes and the judgment of others.”25 But he wrote—on a website for
lawyers and then on a state supreme court website—in the hope that “those who
read this who suffer from the disease of addiction will see themselves, and seek
help.”26 Similarly, the Hon. Sarah L. Krauss, a judge in New York City, wrote, “My
journey from alcoholism to sobriety, recovery and the bench,”27 recounting her life
with alcohol from her teenage years—including being a mother at age 17—through
her recovery efforts, her successful election to the New York bench, and finally her
development of a “close, loving relationship with {her} daughter.”28
20
Alicia Fabbre, From Drug Court Participant to Assistant State’s Attorney, Chicago Tribune,
January 19, 2011.
21
Id.
22
Kathleen Brady Shea, Clean and sober Chesco lawyer commended for helping addicts, Phila-
delphia Inquirer, May 19, 2009.
23
http://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/Boards/OJFN/resources/murphyM.asp. His story was origi-
nally published in 2008 in www.thecompletelawyer.com.
24
Id.
25
Id.
26
Id.
27
34 Tennessee Bar Journal, no. 6, Nov–Dec 1998, reprinting “A Personal Story,” which appeared
in the American Bar Association’s Bar Leader, May 1996.
28
Id.
182 D. B. Wexler
LAP Programs
In their respective essays, both Judge Murphy and Judge Krauss underscored their
involvement in Lawyer Assistance Programs (LAP), programs designed to “offer
hope and help to the impaired attorney, law student, or judge.”29 Murphy noted that
“all the help and hope is given in the strictest of confidence,”30 that “I had never
heard of a breach of such confidence”, and that, through the program, “I have seen
professions saved. I have seen families saved. I have seen lives saved.”
As a member on the national level of what is today known as the American Bar
Association (ABA) Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs (CoLap),31 Judge
Krauss (currently the commission chair) encouraged lawyer readers of her essay
“to address the problem of alcoholism and drug addiction among lawyers” and “to
get involved in your local or state bar association lawyer’s assistance committee.”32
A recent symposium issue of the North Carolina State Bar Journal is dedicated
to the LAP program in that state.33 The symposium explains the functioning of the
program and traces its history since the late 1970s, when the Positive Action for
Lawyers (PALS) Committee was formed. Among other functions, PALS provides
confidential peer support to impaired lawyers through lawyer volunteers—typically
themselves in recovery—who “support those suffering from similar conditions by
sharing their own experiences and successes.”34
The principal purpose of LAP is, of course, for these volunteer LAP lawyers to
counsel and to serve as role models for other lawyers needing support. But there
is another incredibly valuable potential secondary function for LAP lawyers, espe-
cially as they begin to use the principles they have honed in recovery and, in 12-step
language, to “practice these principles in all of {their} affairs.”35 Since law practice
is obviously a major component of their “affairs,” LAP lawyers can begin expressly
to introduce therapeutic jurisprudence into their practices and can seek to include in
their client base some clients with alcohol and drug problems.
As detailed in one section of my edited book Rehabilitating Lawyers: Principles
of Therapeutic Jurisprudence for Criminal Law Practice,36 some attorneys—like
John McShane of Dallas, Texas—are already doing just that. Earlier, I alluded to
McShane’s “jailhouse intervention,”37 and to how McShane visited a jail inmate and
offered to help secure the inmate’s transfer from jail to a treatment facility. Besides
29
Murphy, supra note 24.
30
Id.
31
http://www.americanbar.org/groups/lawyer_assistance.html.
32
Supra note 28. There is also a National Helpline for Judges Helping Judges: http://www.
caljudges.org/news_detail.php?n=60.
33
North Carolina State Bar Journal, Fall 2010.
34
Barbara B. Weyher, Help is a Confidential Phone Call Away, id at 5. The California lawyer sup-
port group adds a dose of levity through its name: The Other Bar. See www.otherbar.org.
35
www.aa.org.
36
Supra note 6.
37
Text accompanying note 12 supra.
recounting the successful resolution of that situation—a favorable plea bargain and
a client in recovery living a satisfying life—the anecdote included another crucially
important aspect of McShane’s client counseling: McShane is himself a recover-
ing addict, now many years clean and sober. Moreover, McShane shared with the
defendant “how the attorney’s life was almost destroyed by alcohol and drugs, the
availability of treatment for addiction, and the promise of a rich, full, and joyful life
if recovery is embraced.”38
McShane’s story led me to write an essay for the journal Court Review, the of-
ficial journal of the American Judges Association, entitled Lawyer-Assistance-Pro-
gram Attorneys and the Practice of Therapeutic Jurisprudence,39 in which I noted
that “LAP volunteer lawyers have a special strength and skill to offer” and that “that
special strength and skill can also be of great assistance to a great many people
caught up in the criminal justice and mental health systems.”40
There are obviously many ways in which the additional skills—and the enhanced
credibility—of PALS can be used by those LAP lawyers in their client counseling
and representation. Jailhouse interventions themselves may be particularly appro-
priate for LAP lawyer participation. Indeed, LAP programs routinely engage in in-
terventions with lawyers,41 and, as John McShane has demonstrated, intervention
skills (such as self-disclosure and piercing through denial and deception) can read-
ily be transferred from a population of impaired lawyers to the context of jailed
clients with drug and alcohol issues. In addition, LAP lawyers might make arrange-
ments to participate in some cases in the various problem-solving courts noted ear-
lier. For a powerful example, consider how a lawyer (especially a woman lawyer)42
with the background of Judge Sarah Krauss—once a teenage alcoholic mother and
today a prestigious member of the legal profession (in her case a judge) with a lov-
ing relationship with her daughter—could function as a client advocate (even as
a pro bono “second chair”) in dependency drug court or family wellness court. A
lawyer with such a background could also function well coordinating with a public
defender office and visiting jailed clients to discuss the possibility of being bailed
into a treatment facility.
A New Direction
My earlier essay focused primarily on LAP lawyers who volunteer as PALS—law-

yers in long-term recovery from drug and alcohol issues—and their value to the
practice of TJ with clients facing addiction issues. What I would like to address here
38
Rehabilitating Lawyers, supra note 6, at 200.
39
Court Review, Vol. 47, p. 64 (2011), online version available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1876065.
40
Id.
41
See Hawaií Supreme Court Rule 16 (1)(b)(2)(discussing “intervention” component of state LAP
program).
42
Judge Krauss made a special point to reach out to women lawyers—who she saw as often too
terrified to seek help. See note 33, supra.
184 D. B. Wexler
is the role of LAP lawyers who, to use the North Carolina LAP terminology, are
FRIENDS rather than PALS. In the North Carolina structure, PALS is focused on
addiction, whereas FRIENDS “provides peer assistance in the areas of depression
and mental health.”43 Because I find the separate categorization of substance abuse
and mental health helpful in thinking about practice and pro bono opportunities for
LAP attorneys, I will continue to use the North Carolina terminology even if it is
not in wide use nationally.
There are some encouraging signs that we may actually be entering an era
where we might make a dent in the stigma associated with mental illness44—or in
“sanism,”45 as the damning stereotype is referred to by Professor Michael Perlin.
The New York Times, for example, has recently run a number of touching pieces
on persons suffering from—and coping admirably with—serious mental illness. In
the words of the New York Times, it is “a series of profiles about people who are
functioning normally despite severe mental illness and have chosen to speak out
about their struggles.”46
Some of these pieces relate to accomplished professionals holding prestigious
and influential positions, such as Keris Myrick, featured in a piece entitled A High-
Profile Executive Job as Defense Against Mental Ills, who suffers from schizoaf-
fective disorder (closely related to schizophrenia) and obsessive-compulsive disor-
der.47 Moreover, the series began with a profile highly relevant to our present pur-
poses: Dr. Marsha Linehan, a psychology professor at the University of Washing-
ton, known worldwide for creating a highly respected treatment for helping severely
suicidal people—and herself a person with borderline personality disorder.48 Line-
han’s public disclosure came after a patient, noticing faded burns and cuts on the
doctor’s arms, asked, “Are you one of us? Because if you were, it would give all of
us so much hope.”49
43
Weyher, supra note 5. Of course, there is often a connection between addiction and mental ill-
ness, as North Carolina noted when it decided to follow a unified administrative structure to evalu-
ate all lawyers seeking help: “Many individuals suffering from addiction also had symptoms of
depression, and …often a person who identified as having a depression problem had, in the back-
ground, an unrecognized addiction issue.” Jerry Leonard & Don Carroll, The Lawyer Assistance
Program Story, North Carolina State Bar Journal 8, 10 (Fall 2010). John McShane’s jailhouse
intervention client suffered from addiction and depression, Rehabilitating Lawyers, supra note 6,
at 194. And John McShane himself, before seeking treatment for his alcohol addiction, was on the
verge of committing suicide. See Steve Keeva, Passionate Practitioner, at: http://www.law.arizona.
edu/depts/upr-intj/pdf/Passionate_Practitioner.pdf.
44
Danielle Andrewartha, Words Will Never Hurt? Media Stigmatisation of People with Mental
Illnesses in the Criminal Justice System, 35 Alternative Law Journal 4 (2010), available online at:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1945538.
45
Michael L. Perlin, Baby Look Inside Your Mirror: The Legal Profession’s Willful and Sanist
Blindness to Lawyers with Mental Disabilities, 69 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 589 (2008), available online at:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1111596.
46
E.g., NY Times, Oct. 23, 2011, at A1.
47
See the article by that title by Benedict Carey in NY Times, Oct. 23, 2011, at A1.
48
Benedict Carey, Expert on Mental Illness Reveals Her Own Fight, NY Times, June 23, 2011,
at A1.
49
Id.
To explode some of the myths, to help destigmatize mental illness, to show that
people with mental illness can lead productive and fulfilling lives, and to give the
all-important ingredient of hope to people suffering from mental illness, these pro-
filed people and others have begun to “come out,” with startling stories that, in turn,
lead still others to share their own life ventures.
Highly meaningful revelations have recently sprung from the legal academy,
most notably through the remarkable book by a first-rate legal scholar, Professor
Elyn Saks of the University Of Southern California School Of Law. Saks’ The
Center Cannot Hold50 recounts her life with schizophrenia, the most serious of the
thought disorders. She details her fierce struggles with doctors, hospitals, medica-
tions, her deep valleys and severely psychotic episodes, and her academic and pro-
fessional accomplishments as a Vanderbilt University valedictorian, a prestigious
Oxford University fellowship holder, a Yale Law Journal member, and, now, the
holder of an endowed professorship at the University of Southern California law
school where she is a mental health law institute director and a major force in men-
tal health law scholarship and reform.
Saks ’revelation is joined by an essay in the Journal of Legal Education by
University of Louisville law professor James Jones, who wrote of his long-term
battle with bipolar disorder, a serious mood disorder—and Professor Jones has now
published a fascinating book on his story.51And most recently, Touro law professor
Marjorie Silver followed suit and wrote her story of life with episodic depression.52
“Luckily,” writes Silver, “unlike that of Professor James Jones or Elyn Saks, my
story is one of episodic, not chronic, mental illness.”53 Noting that she has suffered
six episodes of major clinical depression over a three-decade period, Silver is ex-
plicit about her purpose for writing:
I share my story here for several reasons. One is to join Professors Jones’ and Saks’ brave
campaigns to help de-stigmatize, to normalize, mental illness generally, and among the
legal academy in particular. Another is my supposition that there are more law professors
who have suffered from clinical depression similar to what I have experienced than have
coped with either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Finally, I hope to inspire others who
have borne mental illness to use their own experiences, when feasible, to help their stu-
dents, colleagues, and the practicing bar.54
Silver’s supposition that more law professors—and likely more lawyers—have suf-
fered from clinical depression than from schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, while
not backed by hard data, is consistent with the manner in which depression is un-
derscored in, for example, the North Carolina LAP literature. Thus, FRIENDS “pro-
50
Elyn R.Saks, The Center Cannot Hold (2007).
51
James T. R. Jones, Walking the Tightrope of Bipolar Disorder: The Secret Life of a Law Profes-
sor, 57 J. Legal Ed. 349 (2007), online version available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1087129.
Jones’book is James T. R. Jones, A Hidden Madness (2011).
52
Marjorie A. Silver, A Transformational Melancholy: One Law Professor’s Journey through De-
pression, at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1908992.
53
Id.
54
Id.
186 D. B. Wexler
vides peer assistance in the area of depression and mental health,”55 and “depression
and other mental illnesses” seems to be the customary way of describing mental
health issues among the bar.56 Moreover, a major resource in the field is the website
Lawyers with Depression.57
In any case, Silver has shared her experience and insights in discussing pertinent
mental health issues in her Professional Responsibility course, in counseling law
students suffering serious anxiety or depression, and, more recently, in a LAP pro-
gram involving both lawyers and law students.58 Silver’s role in LAP has included
an effort to “broaden {the LAP program’s} efforts with respect to mental illness.”59
In New York, as in North Carolina, LAP was formed originally to support law-
yers in recovery from substance abuse.60 In New York, the program began to deal
with drug and alcohol abuse and was later broadened to include mental health is-
sues.61
LAPs in New York apparently receive a large number of inquiries from lawyers
suffering from depression as well as from those with problems of substance abuse.
Yet, in Silver’s words, “the membership of many LAPs is composed primarily of
those who are in recovery from the latter. When I attended the annual NYS Bar As-
sociation LAP retreat in 2008, I had the interesting experience of being a member of
a distinct minority…among an overwhelming number of lawyers who had suffered
from alcohol and other drug dependency, some of whom resented the expansion of
the LAPs’ mission.”62
This lag time regarding the inclusion of mental health issues—and the resent-
ment of some about the expansion of the LAP mission—may well reflect the special
stigma still attached to mental illness. But the increasing scope of the LAP mission
now seems certain, and, especially in light of the revelations and the efforts of Saks,
Jones, Silver, and others, we are likely to see many more lawyers and law students
seeking support with mental health issues. And, in time, we are likely to see many
more lawyers with personal experience with mental illness volunteering to offer
their stories and insights, as Silver is now doing.
55
Weyher, supra note 5.
56
E.g., Mark Merritt, A Hard Look in the Mirror, North Carolina State Bar Journal 6, 10 (Fall
2010); Leonard & Carroll, supra note 44, at 9 (“the mission of the Lawyer Assistance Program was
expanded to include helping lawyers with depression and other mental health issues….”).
57
See www.lawyerswithdepression.com. As this important website reveals, the personal stories
of mental illness have not come solely from the legal academy. Some courageous practicing law-
yers—persons without the protective cloak of university tenure—have also gone public, contribut-
ing, I hope, to the destigmatization of mental health problems.
58
Silver, supra note 53.
59
Id.
60
In North Carolina, the program was extended to mental illness in 1999, 20 years after its forma-
tion. See Leonard & Carroll, supra note 44, at 8, 9.
61
62
Id See also Perlin, supra note 46, discussing the legal profession’s prejudice toward persons in
their ranks with mental illness.
Above and beyond sharing their stories with lawyers now in emotional crisis,
these “Friends,” to use the North Carolina terminology, may “give back” by bring-
ing their knowledge and experience into their law practices. Even before going to
law school, Saks gave back by volunteering in a mental hospital.63 And her deci-
sion to attend law school, instead of pursuing studies in philosophy, came when
she “wondered if there were a role I could play in the lives of people who suffered
in a way I understood so well.”64 In fact, during and after law school—before en-
tering academia—Saks worked in a legal capacity with some hospitalized mental
patients.65
Silver is supportive of lawyers using their skills—and special knowledge and
insights—in their practices: “I hope my students will have the courage not only
to share their stories with me, but as they proceed on the journey that will become
their legal careers, they will use their experiences to help clients who are suffering
as well.”66
Silver continues: “Whether an attorney should share personal details about her-
self with a client is a sensitive issue, dependent on the attorney, the client, and the
circumstances. When done, however, for the benefit of the client, to improve the
client’s therapeutic outcome, it constitutes good lawyering.”67
The disclosure issue has two components. First, the lawyer needs to assess
whether he or she is sufficiently secure to disclose without suffering in professional
prestige and opportunities—something not that worrisome, perhaps, for accom-
plished, tenured professors like Saks, Jones, and Silver. The other issue is whether,
given the stigma of mental illness—even among persons with mental illness them-
selves—disclosure to the client may sometimes turn out to be harmful rather than
helpful.
These matters and many related ones need to be considered carefully by LAP
lawyers and others—and such considerations ought to be the subject of scholarship
in the therapeutic jurisprudence field.68 For instance, in contrast to PALS (those in
long-term recovery from substance abuse), do FRIENDS lack a clear counterpart
to being “X years clean and sober?” Or does the contrast between substance abuse
and mental illness break down when one considers the trepidation, expressed earlier
by Judge Michael Murphy in the context of abstinence from alcohol, that “there
is always the possibility of a relapse,” and that watchful eyes might always be in
63
Saks, supra note 51, at kindle edition location 1654-61.
64
Id at kindle edition location 1602-9.
65
Id at kindle edition location 3010-17, 3017-23; 3139-47.
66
67
Id. See also Susan L. Brooks, Using Therapeutic Jurisprudence to Build Effective Relationships
with Students, Clients and Communities, 13 Clinical L. Rev. 213 (2006; discussions, among other
matters, of boundary and limit-setting).
68
David B, Wexler, From Theory to Practice and Back Again in Therapeutic Jurisprudence: Now
Comes the Hard Part, 37 Monash Univ. L. Rev. 33 (2011), online version available at: http://ssrn.
com/abstract=1580129.
188 D. B. Wexler
pursuit?69 And, in the context of mental illness, might lawyers profitably resort to
Marjorie Silver’s words that although the “chances are high that I will experience
one or more breakdowns during the remainder of my years,” it is nonetheless true
that “the future is uncertain for all of us,” and that “all any of us has for sure is
now.”70
As I noted in my previous essay in the context of substance abuse, “LAP lawyers
in long-term recovery who….feel comfortable talking about their personal histo-
ries…will immediately achieve an added credibility with courts and clients.”71 In
the present essay, we must ask if that same statement would at the moment carry as
much strength in the context of mental illness. If not, can a particular type of disclo-
sure language be developed—maybe along the lines of Silver’s words above—to
narrow the credibility gap between the two situations?
In any case, the following statement, again from the prior essay relating to sub-
stance abuse, would clearly apply with equal force in the area of mental health: “But
lawyers who wish to keep such personal matters personal may still have much to
add.”72 Even without disclosure, in other words, lawyers who have battled mental
illness will often better understand matters such as the experience of hospitalization
and medications, may know much about treatment options and particular programs
and treatment centers, may be particularly well equipped to have meaningful dis-
cussions with clients, with mental health professionals, and much, much more.
Legal Opportunities for FRIENDS
We need to think carefully about how and where FRIENDS may be most helpful.
One clear area would be by representing respondents in civil commitment hear-
ings, an area where representation is often dreadful,73 and where LAP lawyers
could perform admirably, especially in counseling their clients and in keeping them
fully informed of options and consequences. With meaningful representation, in-
69
Murphy, supra note 24.
70
71
Supra note 40.
72
Id.
73
Judge Bazelon wrote of the representative lawyers in such proceedings as “walking violations
of the Sixth Amendment.” David L. Bazelon, The Defective Assistance of Counsel, 42 U. Cin. L.
Rev. 1, 2 (1973). And, except for a handful of jurisdictions, matters haven’t improved much in the
nearly 40 years since Judge Bazelon wrote. See Michael L. Perlin, “I Might Need a Good Lawyer,
Could be Your Funeral, My Trial”: Global Clinical Legal Education and the Right to Counsel in
Civil Commitment Cases, 28 Wash. U. J. L. & Polý 241 (2011), version available online at http://
ssrn.com/abstract=1090997. There are, however, some stellar examples of representation in the
mental health area, such as the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights), a public inter-
est law firm, directed by Alaska attorney Jim Gottstein, devoted to opposing forced psychiatric
drugging. http://psychrights.org. LAP lawyers who have themselves experienced and objected to
forced drugging (a major struggle of Elyn Saks) might wish to involve themselves in work along
the lines of that engaged in by PsychRights.
voluntary commitment can often be avoided and other acceptable treatment pos-
sibilities might be invoked. Even if a hearing takes place and results in an order of
commitment, there is TJ literature on the importance of procedural justice in these
proceedings and of the therapeutic as well as the due process benefit of providing
it74—something the lawyer can be attentive to even if the judge, without counsel’s
intervention, might not be.75 And there is also value that comes to the attorney from
participating in civil commitment hearings: the skills and sensitivity one develops
that is transferable to many other TJ-like practice settings—an excellent learning
experience specifically noted by North Carolina deputy public defender Robert
Ward, who branched out from that avenue to many others, including becoming a
leading figure in DTC representation.76
74
Judging in a Therapeutic Key: Therapeutic Jurisprudence and the Courts 131 (Bruce J. Winick
& David B. Wexler, eds.)(2003).
75
If outcome is not much in doubt, judges may tend to cut corners, but this would be a mistake in
terms of perceptions of fairness and even with later cooperation with doctors and the like. Another
role a TJ volunteer lawyer might play is analogous to the role played in the criminal justice sphere
by Georgia Justice Project lawyers: to “defend people accused of crimes and, win or lose, stand
with them while they rebuild their lives.” http://gjp.org/about I am indebted to Marjorie Silver for
this insight, and believe it will likely be of particular interest to FRIENDS and clients with mental
health issues. Indeed, armed with that insight, I was reminded of Saks’ long-term involvement with
a client named Jefferson: “One of my favorite cases, involving someone I would end up working
with on and off for six years, was Jefferson, a young man barely out of his teens. When we first
met him, Jefferson had been on a back ward in a state mental hospital for many years….In addition
to having been diagnosed as mentally ill, Jefferson was moderately mentally retarded. And therein
lay the problem: Retardation is not equivalent to mental illness, and there seemed to be no current
evidence that he was still mentally ill. And if he wasn’t, a state mental hospital was absolutely the
last place he should have been living.” Saks, supra note 51, kindle edition location 3140-47-55.
One important function a LAP FRIEND lawyer could perform when dealing with a client in a civil
commitment or mental health court matter is discussing—and perhaps preparing—an advance
directive instrument relating to possible future psychiatric care. This function would be especially
useful if the lawyer adheres to the Georgia Justice Project model mentioned above and is willing to
work with the client even after hospitalization and release. Upon release, for example, the lawyer
might ask the client if he or she wishes to prepare an advance directive instrument to be followed
if serious psychological matters occur later on. See Bruce J. Winick, Foreword: Planning for the
future through Advance Directive Instruments, 4 Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 579 (1998).
Surveys reveal that many persons support the use of advance directive instruments but, because
of time and other logistical considerations, few of them actually prepare one. See J. Swanson et
al., Psychiatric Advance Directives Among Public Mental Health Consumers in Five US Cities:
Prevalence, Demand, and Correlates, 34 J. American Acad. Of Psychiatry & Law 43 (2006). See
generally William P. Spaulding, Therapeutic Jurisprudence: A View From the Trenches (this vol-
ume). LAP FRIENDS could function to lessen the above noted logistical problems.
76
Rehabilitating Lawyers, supra note 6, at 207 (contribution of Robert Ward)(“I began my work
at the Public Defender’s Office by representing clients facing civil involuntary commitments and
regular misdemeanors. Knowledge gained there later helped me with the more serious cases. I
learned much from clients and the hospital staff, particularly how to identify the symptoms of
common illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. I learned how to speak with them as
I would any other client. Essentially, the key was to be aware of their condition and then work with
them to develop an action plan”).
190 D. B. Wexler
Participating in mental health court proceedings is another natural forum for

LAP FRIENDS. Much of the legal work in that setting is actually conducted before
court hearings in conversations between counsel and client about the decision to
enter into the mental health court program, what it means, and what consequences
would flow from choosing or declining program participation.77 Although courts
are supposed to explain these choices to new candidates, the judges often do this
in group settings, and many who enter mental health court turn out to believe that
they were never given a clear explanation and choice.78 Since, as we have already
seen,79 these clear and respectful communications have a therapeutic as well as a
legal effect, counsel can play a highly important role here, and a role in which LAP
FRIENDS should feel especially comfortable: speaking with persons in emotional
crisis, explaining the actual functioning of the offered programs, making sure the
prospective enrollee understands the costs and benefits of participation and non-
participation.80
The newly established veterans courts should be another rewarding source of
professional work for these LAP lawyers—especially since so many clients of such
courts are returning combat veterans with PTSD.81 These courts will often see cases
where a veteran’s PTSD has led to drug and alcohol problems, to driving while
intoxicated (DWI) charges, or to domestic violence or other assault charges. If the
client is in treatment for PTSD, the lawyer can, with the client’s consent, help co-
ordinate appointments with the client’s therapist—the kind of communication that
a LAP FRIEND should find familiar and comfortable. Coordination is especially
important because if a client is, for example, receiving a type of “exposure therapy,”
the therapy itself may actually temporarily heighten the client’s stress and anxi-
ety; thus, a court appointment or legal counseling session should surely not follow
on the heels of such a therapy session.82 Coordination is also important because
litigation clearly adds to the client’s stress—sometimes even pushing particularly
77
“Although observations of mental health court reveal ‘there is little that reflects traditional ‘law-
yering’ as the attorneys are relegated to relatively minor roles in the hearings,’ pre-selection legal
advice and counseling are essential.” Rehabilitating Lawyers, supra note 6, at 26.
78
Id.
79
Supra, note 75.
80
In the analogous area of drug court enrollment, lawyer Martin Reisig underscores the impor-
tance of taking pains to explain the program and of avoiding a rush to judgment on the part of
the client. Such is especially the case because a number of clients in drug court fail to complete
the program and are returned to court to await sentencing on a charge to which they have already
pled guilty. Such clients often experience a “double whammy” and feel “sold out” by their hurried
lawyers. See Rehabilitating Lawyers, supra note 6, at 156–162 (contribution by Marin Reisig).
81
Supra note 15. See also Capt. Evan Seamone, Attorneys as First-Responders: Recognizing the
Destructive Nature of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder on the Combat Veteran’s Legal Decision-
Making Process, 202 Military L. Rev. 144 (2009)(hereinafter Seamone I); Capt. Evan Seamone,
The Veterans’ Lawyer as Counselor: Using Therapeutic Jurisprudence to Enhance Client Coun-
seling for Combat Veterans with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, 202 Military L. Rev. 185 (2009)
(hereinafter Seamone II).
82
Seamone I, supra note 81, at 171.
troubled clients to suicide83—and a LAP lawyer could perform an important service

explaining to the therapist the legal situation of the client so that the therapist can
take into account of that in providing the necessary psychological services.84
Capt. Evan Seamone, a military lawyer, has written a couple of excellent articles
relating to therapeutic jurisprudence, legal counseling of veterans, and PTSD.85 In
the course of his comprehensive exposition of the issues, he discusses some aspects
of a lawyer’s role that overlap substantially with what a psychologist might do pro-
fessionally. For example, he provides a PTSD checklist designed by the military for
rather simple and straightforward use, and suggests it can—and should—be used
by lawyers when they suspect a veteran may have PTSD.86 Seamone convincingly
likens the task to the commonly accepted practice of attorneys using a Competency
Screening Test to assess a client’s mental capacity to stand trial.87
But then Seamone suggests something not conventionally in the bailiwick of
barristers: using simple, basic psychological techniques such as relaxation exercises
to calm a client before a stressful interview and the like.88 Seamone examines the
statutes on the lawful and unlawful practice of psychology, and concludes that the
techniques and practices he notes do not constitute unlawful practice when per-
formed by other professionals—lawyers are specifically mentioned in some of the
statutes89—in the course of their professional practices.90 Thus, instead of postpon-
ing to another date the interviewing or counseling of a stressed client, a lawyer
might appropriately consider a relaxation exercise to be part and parcel of the law-
yer’s professional task.
Seamone cautions lawyers who decide to engage in these simple psychological
practices to explain clearly and carefully to the client that the lawyer is not a psy-
chologist, and to secure the client’s consent.91 It is also important to underscore that
the practices discussed here are indeed simple and find their way into standard and
well-regarded “self-help” books.92
Of course, not all lawyers—LAP or otherwise—will be inclined to engage in
these basic psychological techniques. But it may well be that a number of LAP
83
Id at 150.
84
Id at 178, 181.
85
Supra note 82.
86
Seamone II, supra note 82, at 207, 212.
87
Id at 215.
88
Id at 228.
89
Id at 203.
90
Id.
91
Id at 243.
92
Id at 228, 243. It might be a good practice for lawyers interested in this work to create a commit-
tee of psychologists to “vet” such self-help books. Indeed, one can imagine a respected psycholo-
gist or group of psychologists writing a book especially for lawyers to use with clients. By analogy,
consider the excellent book by Martin Seligman, a former president of the American Psychological
Association, entitled What You Can Change…. and What You Can’t: The Complete Guide to
Successful Self-Improvement (1994).
192 D. B. Wexler
FRIENDS will indeed be attracted to including this work in their practice. How,
then, can the logistics be worked out to facilitate interested LAP FRIENDS engag-
ing in these as well as the earlier mentioned practice areas?
Logistics and Concluding Remarks
In my earlier paper dealing with LAP principally in the area of PALS (substance
abuse), I addressed certain basic issues. For instance, “representation in problem-
solving courts is overwhelmingly engaged in by public defender offices,”93 thus
in practice excluding other lawyers—LAP and others—from practicing in those
courts. Special arrangements might be made with such public defender offices to
designate a group of “special deputy public defenders” and thereby allow some
volunteer lawyers—from LAP programs or, perhaps, from recent law school gradu-
ates eager to gain some experience practicing in settings particularly conducive to
honing TJ skills.94 Similar efforts may be appropriate to widen the pool of talent
handling civil commitment cases.95 The earlier essay concluded by stating that “the
next step, therefore, is for interested persons and groups—including the courts and
the bar—to brainstorm how these practice avenues may be opened to interested
lawyers, and to provide training, materials, and overall encouragement to lawyers—
LAP and otherwise—wishing to serve others in achieving a rich and full life.”96
The opening up of these opportunities to volunteer lawyers generally, rather than
to LAP lawyers exclusively, would serve an additional purpose: “if the volunteer law-
yers are drawn not only from LAP programs but are broadly-based, confidentiality
of LAP status may be preserved for those who wish to preserve it”97—a matter that,
as we have discussed earlier, may turn out to be even more important for FRIENDS
than for PALS.
But this discussion brings us back to the earlier discussion of disclosure, and how
the work of Saks, Jones, and Silver may encourage others in the legal profession
to be willing to speak of their struggles and successes. While much good work by
LAP FRIENDS can be accomplished by thinking through and implementing the
reforms noted immediately above, still other rewarding and very helpful practice
avenues can be opened to LAP FRIENDS who follow in the disclosure footsteps of
the above legal academics.
93
Supra note 40.
94
Id. Another model, a bit different from the special deputy public defender model, would be to
consider whether interested attorneys could form part of the panels of lawyers ordinarily called
upon when the public defender office has a conflict of interest. Such a model would also allow for
appointed attorneys to receive a modest fee from public funds—a not insignificant matter in tough
economic times.
95
Supra note 40.
96
Id.
97
Id.
Imagine, for example, that, instead of individual LAP lawyers volunteering to

take cases in specific practice settings, there were committees of LAP volunteer
lawyers that could be called upon by other lawyers—including public defenders
or perhaps law school clinics98—to associate in particular cases involving clients
with substance abuse or mental health issues. Thus, a lawyer called upon by a fam-
ily to represent a jailed family member with drug and alcohol issues might well
contact the LAP program for a volunteer PAL who could be called upon to engage
with the client in a “jailhouse intervention.” Likewise, an attorney working with a
combat veteran charged with assault might request the involvement of a FRIEND
to conduct a PTSD screening test, and, if PTSD seems a likely diagnosis, to refer
the veteran for mental health treatment, to coordinate matters with the mental health
professional, to explore the option of moving the case to veterans court, perhaps to
engage the client in relaxation exercises before further counseling sessions with the
principal lawyer, and so on.
Moreover, if a LAP lawyer is to serve as an independent attorney in an area out-
side his or her prior practice experience, the plunge into a TJ practice may seem
appealing but intimidating. But if one has the opportunity to engage in a TJ practice
in the capacity of a “second chair” or as a consultant with some special knowledge,
skills, and credibility, the opportunity to “give back” by venturing into the TJ world
may be much more palatable99—and may then attract more and more of such lawyer
volunteers. The entire issue of training of LAP lawyers—and of introducing them
comfortably and gradually into TJ practice—is an interesting one worthy of attention.
The issues explored in this essay are by necessity given a very preliminary treat-
ment. My hope is that interested LAP lawyers can consider these issues in more depth,
and can discuss them with lawyers and judges involved in problem-solving courts,
in civil commitment cases, and with the TJ community in general. Such cooperative
exchanges are destined to result in improved service to clients and to new rewarding
practice and pro bono opportunities for LAP lawyers and for their relatively new
FRIENDS. Moreover, as interesting TJ literature suggests, engaging in this type of
practice is likely to add professional satisfaction to the life of the lawyer.100 And as if
that were not enough, a recent study suggests that “giving back” in an altruistic way
may even, in and of itself, be good for one’s health, even increasing longevity.101
98
E.g., Gregory Baker & Jennifer Zawid, The Birth of a Therapeutic Courts Externship Program:
Hard Labor but Worth the Effort, 17 St. Thomas L. Rev. 711 (2005).
99
This arrangement may also prove to be more palatable to the clients. Earlier, we mentioned that
the stigma of mental illness may extend to persons who themselves have mental health problems—
including clients facing civil commitment or proceedings in mental health court. But if a disclosing
LAP lawyer is serving in an advisory or “second chair” capacity, an adverse reaction by the client
would seem to be most unlikely. And this process itself may also serve gradually to lessen the
stigma attached to mental illness.
100
E.g., Deborah Chase & Hon. Peggy Fulton Hora, The Best Seat in the House: The Court As-
signment and Judicial Satisfaction, 47 Family Court Rev. 209 (2009), available online at: http://
www.judgehora.com/FCH_Hora_Chase_03_2009.pdf.
101
Volunteering to Help Others Could Lead to Better Health, Medical News Today, Sept. 7, 2011,
at: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/233972.php.
Part IV
Political Conflict, Policy Solutions, and
Citizens’ Well-being
Chapter 8
After Violent Conflict: Justice, Well-being,
and International Criminal Courts
Patrice C. McMahon and Jennifer L. Miller
Introduction
In international politics, conflict resolution is difficult to achieve. Conflict resolu-

tion generally signifies that disputants have resolved their differences with little
likelihood of future conflict—violent or otherwise (Diehl 2008). After violence oc-
curs, conflict resolution is almost impossible, and this is particularly true when the
violence is sustained for long periods of time and affects large numbers of people.
Nonetheless, international peace operations in the 1990s asserted that the manage-
ment of conflict was not enough; instead, international actors like the United Nations
(UN) needed to address the “root causes of conflict” and transform hostile environ-
ments. This assumption and practice—about resolving and transforming violent con-
flicts—is fairly new to international politics, and many trace these ideas to the UN’s
1992 Agenda for Peace that acknowledges both the challenges and opportunities in
the post-Cold War era (UN document A/47/277–S. 24,111, 1992). This document,
and many others that followed, put into place the UN’s peace operations that include
a continuum of activities, from preventive diplomacy to post-conflict peacebuilding.
Of these peace operations, post-conflict peacebuilding was the most compre-
hensive and ambitious. Broadly defined, peacebuilding includes any “actions to
identify and support structures which will tend to strengthen and solidify peace
in order to avoid a relapse into conflict;” and this involves various top-down and
bottom-up mechanisms aimed at changing structures and attitudes related to peace
(Keating and Knight 2006, p. xxxv). This chapter focuses on the role and impact
of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to un-
derstand the long-term effects of peacebuilding initiatives in the southern Balkans
(which includes the countries of the former Yugoslavia: Croatia, Bosnia and Her-
zegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Montenegro). Put differently,
P. C. McMahon ()
Department of Political Science, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA
e-mail: pmcmahon2@unl.edu
J. L. Miller
School of Government and Public Policy, University of Arizona, 315 Social Science Bldg.,
Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
198 P. C. McMahon and J. L. Miller
after violent conflict and the intentional use of this legal mechanism (as well as oth-
er tools), is conflict resolution transpiring? Using Balkan countries as comparative
case studies, we argue that although justice and well-being are difficult to achieve
in the wake of violent international conflict, these outcomes are not impossible.
Almost two decades after the violence started and 15 years since the international
community intervened, Balkan countries are moving, albeit slowly, toward justice
and peace.
The strife that enveloped the former Yugoslav republic from 1992−1995 resulted
in ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, and some 100,000 people killed. In 1993,
the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) established the ICTY to prosecute in-
dividuals responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in the
Yugoslav wars. However, as the UNSC resolution also states, the court was created
with other, broader political and social purposes in mind, specifically “to contribute
to the restoration and maintenance of peace” (UN Resolution 827 1993). Thus, the
long-term and ambitious goals of the international court were to promote justice,
well-being, and conflict resolution in the Balkans. After more than a dozen years of
activity, some 161 indictments, 64 arrests and 47 surrenders, the ICTY has accom-
plished a good deal in terms of its prosecutorial task. But what of its other secondary
goals related to the restoration and maintenance of peace? Are progressive changes
underway that reflect these broader goals? Finally, what does this strategy, which
focuses on individual accountability and legal prosecution, suggest about the pros-
pects for conflict resolution in other war-torn countries?
To answer these questions, this paper compares different sectors associated with
the ICTY’s multidimensional mandate. We argue that although there were, initially,
significant differences among Balkan states over the establishment of the court,
changes associated with the court’s long-term mission, or what we call transitional
justice outcomes, are relatively uniform. For example, in Bosnia and Kosovo, where
elites were more predisposed to the ICTY’s goals and where external actors hold
significant sway, we should expect better transitional justice outcomes. Conversely,
in Serbia, where elites have been consistently opposed to the ICTY and where inter-
national actors have less power, transitional justice outcomes should be less evident.
We suggest that if the ICTY and this strategy have really had any discernible impact
on conflict resolution, there should be some clear differences in outcomes in the
Balkans; and yet, there are not. Instead, we find that outcomes are fairly uniform,
and even though they do not suggest that international conflict resolution is easy or
quick, improvements are possible and disputants can resolve their differences with
little likelihood of future conflict.
Early writings on the ICTY, largely those of legal scholars, claimed that the
creation of an international tribunal was an essential ingredient of peacebuilding in
the former Yugoslavia (Hampson 1996; Akhavan 1998). According to this view, the
ICTY would not only end impunity, but it would help rebuild judicial capacity and
foster respect for human rights and the rule of law (Bass 2000; Thoms et al. 2008).
The ICTY was, thus, essential to conflict resolution. The ideas of these so-called
8 After Violent Conflict: Justice, Well-being, and International Criminal Courts 199
judicial romantics1 were contested by “judicial skeptics,” who doubted the import
of international institutions and insisted that the ICTY in particular would have
little bearing on states’ behavior (Mearsheimer 1994/1995; Mendeloff 2004; Cob-
ban 2006). Some even argued that the existence of an international court would
do more harm than good, provoking a negative backlash especially within Serbia
(Vinjamuri and Snyder 2004).
In the last few years, there has been a noticeable shift toward more empirically
grounded research on transitional justice and the ICTY (Kerr 2005; Meernik 2005;
Orentlicher 2008; Peskin 2008; Subotić 2009; Lamont 2010; Orentlicher 2010).
And while there is widespread agreement on the need to move away from a priori
legalistic assertions and toward empirical studies, scholars readily acknowledge
the significant methodological hurdles to establishing causality and evaluating out-
comes (Lundy and McGovern 2008; Van der Merwe et al. 2009; Nettelfield 2010;
Olsen et al. 2010). Studies of transitional justice in the Balkans, therefore, tend to
examine these issues quite narrowly in terms of cooperation with the ICTY and
largely as it relates to arrests and prosecutions (Peskin 2008; Subotić 2009; Lamont
2010). Since these scholars are interested in assessing the ICTY’s primary, short-
term task of prosecution—and not the more diffuse, long-term goal of peace and
security—other transitional justice outcomes are ignored.2
Defining and measuring broader outcomes requires some creativity, because of
problems of causal inference, a plurality of causes, as well as the diffuse nature of
the ICTY’s mandate (King et al. 1994; Nettelfield 2010; Olsen et al. 2010). Ac-
knowledging these complications, we use the concept of “transitional justice out-
comes” to examine what is happening on different fronts, including: criminal ac-
countability, democratization, rule of law, and attitudes toward transitional justice
and peace. These empirical proxies allow us to test the arguments and predictions of
both judicial romantics and skeptics. To be clear, we do not suggest that transition-
al justice outcomes are due solely to the ICTY and international criminal justice;
rather, our intention is to examine whether assumed and broad processes associated
with the ICTY’s creation are, in fact, evident across similar cases (George and Ben-
nett 2005; Gerring 2007).
Based on our findings, we make two claims. First, Balkan countries have, in-
deed, moved beyond prosecution, and the other, secondary goals of the ICTY re-
lated to justice and conflict resolution are transpiring, albeit slowly. Second, given
that certain behaviors—like the arrest of high-profile war criminals—can only be
linked directly to other actors and stimuli, like the European Union (EU) and condi-
tionality, the ICTY plays only an indirect role in encouraging progressive outcomes
by informing the policies of other more powerful actors that are more capable of
effectuating change. By necessity, our analysis is largely qualitative and interpretive
and relies on data from various primary and secondary sources.
1
On the concept of judicial romanticism, see Forsythe (2006), Chap. 4.
2
There are two notable exceptions: the research and interviews conducted by Diane F. Orentlicher
in Serbia and Bosnia (see Orentlicher 2008, 2010).
Our research makes three contributions to existing literature in political science

and public policy. First, it addresses important and expensive policies adopted by
the international community under the guise of conflict resolution that, thus far, lack
empirical confirmation. We, therefore, ask whether the existence of this internation-
al court has proven essential to fostering the rule of law and restoring and maintain-
ing peace in the Balkans. We believe that our findings—or lack of findings—have
relevance for conflict resolution in other post-conflict settings. Although we find
no evidence that the ICTY has seriously harmed outcomes or provoked a sustained
backlash, we also garner little evidence that this international institution alone has
had a discrete impact on the outcomes and behavior we observe. At best, this in-
ternational court can be seen as one actor, among many, that is contributing in cer-
tain, but indirect ways, to promoting positive liberal changes and resolving conflict.
Thus, if the international community genuinely wants to engage in conflict resolu-
tion after violent conflict, the importance of reinforcing actors and strategies cannot
be overlooked.
Second, this work adds to the academic research on the role and effectiveness
of the ICTY. Much of the empirical research on the ICTY argues that compliance
with the ICTY, when it occurs, is largely instrumental because Balkans leaders “hi-
jack” transitional justice to further their own political agendas (Subotić 2009). Our
research does not necessarily disagree with this finding, but we do show that even
while this elite behavior is occurring, other political and social changes are under-
way which are in line with the court’s broader long-term goals. We repeat what is
both surprising and important: positive political and social changes are happening
throughout the Balkans, and all countries are moving toward accountability, liberal
democracy, improved rule of law, and peace—at roughly the same pace and regard-
less of elite posturing. To be sure, liberal democracy at the national level does not
guarantee peace and conflict resolution, but it does bode well for the future of both.
Finally, this project contributes to empirical studies of transitional justice out-
comes by establishing various benchmarks of political and social change. Using the
concept of transitional justice outcomes, this comparative study of democratization
focuses on the nuanced changes and policies related specifically to the goals and
expectations of transitional justice. By bringing together quantitative indicators and
qualitative research, this research helps establish a framework for evaluating the
long-term impact of efforts at conflict resolution. Admittedly, these broader, more
protracted outcomes do not attract the same amount of attention as the arrests of war
criminals, but they do point in the same direction: toward mission accomplished.
The Multiple Goals of Transitional Justice
The use of international criminal courts to address legacies of conflict or repres-

sion reflects different motivations and embodies various goals (Kritz 1995; Minow
1998; Elster 2004). In the short-term, courts are sometimes regarded as an effective
strategy for ending bloodshed, holding criminals accountable, and deterring future
atrocities. In the medium- to long-term, accountability through prosecution alleg-

edly builds trust among citizens, promotes societal reconciliation, and helps foster a
democratic culture based on the rule of law (Orentlicher 1991). Or so it is claimed;
the true test, but also the toughest one for the ICTY, rests on its ability to foster in-
stitutions and practices that address the past and lay the foundation for a democratic
future (Van der Merwe et al. 2009). Methodologically, it is easy neither to measure
the ability of the ICTY “to foster institutions and practices,” nor to prove its impact
on outcomes. States’ compliance with judicial mandates is an important part of
transitional justice, but this is just one aspect of a broader, multi-pronged, multi-
institutional mission to promote economic reform, democracy, and stability in the
region (UN Resolution 827 1993; Kelley 2004; Vachudova 2005; McMahon 2007).
It is these broader transitional justice outcomes that we seek to address conceptually
and assess empirically.
Recently, a great deal has been written on the challenges of measuring transi-
tional justice effects, with a particular focus on disaggregating contextual factors
and developing baseline characteristics (Van der Merwe et al. 2009; Nettelfield
2010; Olsen et al. 2010). The field is maturing quickly, with research that employs
both quantitative and qualitative techniques. The Transitional Justice Data Base, the
Truth Commission Database Project, and the Human Rights Prosecutions Database
Project now all make large-scale quantitative analysis possible (Dancy et al. 2010;
Olsen et al. 2010; Kim and Sikkink 2010). Although this research advances what
we know about when and why certain transitional justice mechanisms are adopted
and their achievements, these datasets focus either on domestic transitional justice
mechanisms or include international criminal courts and the Balkans to a limited
extent (Olsen et al. 2010).
Excellent qualitative work has also been done on transitional justice and the Bal-
kans that uses thick description3 to explain state compliance with the ICTY (Peskin
2008; Subotić 2009; Lamont 2010). These studies focus on the demand for arrests
and the transfer of indicted war criminals, evaluating only these specific outcomes
and the ICTY’s goals in this one area. This is neither surprising nor fundamentally
flawed, but it is incomplete; arrests are an important sign of cooperation with the
ICTY, but they are only one indicator, and focusing solely on criminal account-
ability can distort or overlook broader aggregate outcomes (Forsythe 2011). In Ser-
bia, for example, international actors that demanded “cooperation with the ICTY”
gauged achievements exclusively by the number of suspects Serbian authorities
arrested and transferred to The Hague (Subotić 2009, p. 44). However, this measure
can only be considered a partial test of the achievements in international criminal
justice, especially since many of the arrests were linked to other actors, like the EU
or the US, and the policy of conditionality, rather than the ICTY and its legal argu-
ments (Subotić 2009; Lamont 2010). It is also true that in all Balkan countries, other
outcomes were expected and, indeed, promised with the ICTY’s creation.
Within the social sciences, “thick description” broadly refers to an examination of behavior,
3
which includes historical, cultural, and social context as a portion of the explanation.
As Neil Kritz suggests, there are four basic objectives of any transitional jus-
tice program: truth, justice, rule of law, and durable peace (1995). These outcomes,
however, are not agreed upon and are difficult to measure because no exact prox-
ies exist that capture these outcomes. We contend that if these are the standards by
which transitional justice policies are evaluated, benchmarks of progress must be
established and outcomes evaluated. Bringing together the benefits of comparative
research and relying on both quantitative and qualitative research, we provide a
preliminary way of measuring transitional justice outcomes by examining criminal
accountability, democratization, rule of law, and attitudinal and social changes. This
is neither comprehensive nor definitive, but the following are based on the claims
made about the broad benefits of international criminal justice. These categories
and how they are measured are conceptualized as follows:
(i) Criminal accountability: The creation of an international court reflects a basic
belief in the importance of punishing lawbreakers and societies’ need to establish
a just order (Huyse 1995). Arrests, along with other efforts to establish individual
accountability, are evidence that states accept the primary and most immediate ob-
jective of the ICTY. We, thus, examine arrest records, especially the arrests of high-
profile war criminals, as initial apprehensions tended to be “middle management”
rather than the “big guns” (Bohlander 2003).
(ii) Democratization: Prosecution is supposed to strengthen fragile democra-
cies by providing protection against “spoilers” who might exploit the country’s
precarious political environment (Huyse 1995). Democracy requires time to take
root, but there are several widely accepted sources that measure democratic change
over time. We use Freedom House4 data which measures eight different aspects of
democracy and provides a composite state score. However, since political change
cannot be interpreted simplistically or formulaically, we also analyze briefly the
content of elite discourse for illiberal ethnic nationalism as it relates specifically and
solely to cooperation with the ICTY. This is done through content analysis of news
sources accessed via LexisNexis from 1996 to 2010.5
(iii) Rule of law: The prosecution of war criminals, allegedly, fosters domestic
practices and new norms associated with strengthening rule of law (Vinjamuri and
Snyder 2004). We use both Freedom House rankings of judicial independence and
the World Bank’s World Governance Indicators (WGI) to assess changes in rule of
law for each of the states in this study. While the former measures judicial capacity,
the latter captures perceptions of confidence in the rules of society, and in particular
the quality of contract enforcement, property rights, the police, and the courts. In
addition to these different measures of judicial capacity, we also address the devel-
opment of domestic criminal courts and, when available, the devolution of specific
criminal cases and legislation relating to cooperation with the ICTY.6
4
Reports used in this research can be found at www.freedomhouse.org; the locations of specific
reports used are included in the bibliography.
5
For Kosovo, it was from 2008–2010.
6
For discussion of the World Governance Indicators, see http://info.worldbank.org/governance/
wgi/pdf/rl.pdf.
(iv) Attitudes toward transitional justice and peace: International criminal jus-
tice should also affect public opinion (Huyse 1995, p. 341). The existence of the
ICTY should have some impact on beliefs related to criminal accountability, recon-
ciliation, and future peace (Hagan 2003; Elster 2004; Stromseth et al. 2006). Some
public opinion data on the ICTY exist, but they are either dated or unavailable for
all Balkan countries (Olsen et al. 2010, p. 160). Although no cross-national surveys
of attitudes toward transitional justice exist, interviews conducted by Diane Orentli-
cher in Serbia (2008) and Bosnia (2010), as well as earlier interviews conducted
by the International Center for Transitional Justice in Croatia, provide insight into
public attitudes toward transitional justice and the goals of the ICTY (Cruvellier and
Valinas 2006). In addition to existing surveys and interviews, we examine activities
within civil society that relate to transitional justice and the ICTY.
Balkan Comparisons
For those hoping that the ICTY’s creation would have an immediate impact on
the disintegrating Yugoslav state, the outcome was both obvious and disappoint-
ing; it neither stopped the bloodshed nor deterred violent behavior (Akhavan 1998,
p. 751). In the medium- to long-term, Serbia and Croatia are generally known for
resisting ICTY dictates while elites in Bosnia and Kosovo are considered to be
supportive of international criminal justice and the court. The following in-depth
examination demonstrates that despite these positions, transitional justice outcomes
are not that different and political and social changes have occurred at roughly the
same pace throughout the region. Whereas quantitative indices provide some evi-
dence of these outcomes, we are also interested in other, more nuanced changes, as
well as perceptions of change that make qualitative, interpretive analysis necessary.
Criminal Accountability
The presence of 36,000 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-led troops in

Bosnia in January 1996 augured a bright future for criminal accountability; how-
ever, since the Americans in particular were bent on avoiding causalities, the “arrest
of war criminals was the one thing that they most opposed” (Bass 2000, p. 239).
It was not until July 1997 that NATO’s Stabilization Force in Bosnia (SFOR) be-
gan arresting indicted war criminals (Bass 2000). In general, Bosniaks cooperated
with the ICTY’s dictates while Bosnian Serbs and Croats resisted. By mid-2010,
SFOR had made 27 arrests and Bosnian authorities 3. The existence of the ICTY
did encourage Bosnian surrenders, including former Republic of Srpska (RS) Presi-
dent Biljana Plavsic in 2001. Nonetheless, the ICTY’s ineffectiveness in the RS is
noteworthy; as of 2004, it was the only Balkan authority that had not handed over a
single suspect to the Tribunal (International Center for Transitional Justice, 2004).
Croatia has similarly had a mixed record of cooperation with the ICTY’s goals in
this area. Public approval of the “Croatian Homeland War” meant there was little ini-
tial internal pressure to hand over indicted criminals. Yet, investigations and transfers
of Bosnian Croats were often collaborative, particularly with low-level offenders.
Such cooperation did not materialize in cases targeting high-ranking Croatian army
members or that garnered little international scrutiny. Some suspects even received
state support; according to one attorney, the Croatian military helped relocate and
cover-up the whereabouts of four suspects between 1997 and 2000 (Wood 2006).
After campaigning to improve relations with the ICTY, Ivica Račan’s government
was tested in the summer of 2001 with the indictments for Ante Gotovina and Rahim
Ademi (Fisher 2006). Ademi “surrendered” and was quickly transferred, but govern-
ment officials delayed in arresting Gotovina, allowing him time to escape (McLean
and Simons 2005). Račan’s refusal to transfer Janko Bobetko in 2002, on account
of the general’s poor health, reinforced Croatia’s deteriorating image (Fisher 2006).
Nevertheless, a 2004 Security Council Report noted that “cooperation on the
part of the Croatian authorities has improved considerably” from previous admin-
istrations (HINA 2004). By February 2005, nine individuals were transferred to
The Hague and the government began seriously pursuing Gotovina (Wood 2005).
Gotovina was finally arrested in December 2005 by Spanish authorities; extensive
cooperation between Croatian intelligence and ICTY field officials attested to the
government’s newfound willpower (McLean and Simons 2005). At the same time,
the Croatian government continued to provide financial support to many arrested
individuals, leading the ICTY to characterize its behavior as taking “sides with the
accused” (HINA 2006).
Of the 161 indictments issued, only 7 were for Kosovar Albanians. All of those
charged have been affiliated with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Early at-
tempts to investigate Kosovar Albanians were thwarted by the Serbian administra-
tion; even in June 1999, when control of Kosovo was already transferred to the
United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), Serbian officials tried to deny access
to the ICTY’s Prosecutor (Kerr 2007). UNMIK’s control over the region allowed
the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) to arrest two Kosovar Albanians while oth-
ers surrendered or were arrested by different authorities. To date, Kosovo has cre-
ated the most inhospitable environment for accused war criminals in the Balkans
(though some members of the KLA have served as leaders in the government).
Direct cooperation between Kosovar elites and the ICTY has occurred at the high-
est levels. Ramush Haradinaj, for example, was a former KLA leader who served as
prime minister (2004–2005) but stepped down due to his indictment by the ICTY
for crimes against humanity. The reopening of war crimes cases by the European
Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), also suggests some support for
transitional justice (Koha Ditore 2008). Closed war crimes files that were sealed
due to their potential for destabilization are now being reexamined, with the hope
that information about missing persons will finally be revealed.
Approximately 65 % of the indicted war criminals were ethnic Serbs, though
only 13 % were Serbian citizens (Orentlicher 2008). Serbia has arrested and hand-
ed over four of the highest-profile war criminals—Slobodan Milošević in 2001,
Radovan Karadžić in 2008, Ratko Mladić in May 2011 and Goran Hadžić in June
2011. Although the international community feared that these arrests would gener-
ate a violent backlash, they did not and news of Milošević’s arrest even ignited
“jubilant celebrations in the streets of Belgrade” (UN 2001). After Karadžić’s arrest,
special forces were deployed and several Karadžić supporters were arrested after
attacking reporters in front of the war crimes court (Stojanovich 2008). Mladić’s
arrest prompted demonstrations but no large-scale violence. Given that these indict-
ments came in 1995 (for Karadžić and Mladić) and 1999 (for Milošević), it is clear
the ICTY alone did not produce a change in Serbia’s behavior. And these important
arrests aside, Serbia’s record of holding war criminals accountable is quite poor.
As of early 2009, the Serbian government arrested only 12 of its citizens, though
dozens of Serbs have surrendered (ICTY n.d., “The Cases”).
Democratization
An examination of some of the similarities in democratization can be made through

a comparison of Freedom House scores since 1999. As Table 8.1 shows, Balkan
states have trended together toward democratic change. Although there are some
exceptions and movement is slow, all Balkan states have “transitional” or “hybrid”
regimes, meaning that democratic institutions are still fragile throughout the Bal-
kans. Importantly, in Serbia and Croatia, there is greater movement toward becom-
ing semi-consolidated democracies, and Freedom House analyses even highlight
these progressive changes within Serbia, starting in 2009, noting its increasing
cooperation with the ICTY (Freedom House 2010, p. 426). The in-depth country
summaries further demonstrate that political developments cannot be interpreted
simplistically and that outcomes, such as the election of nationalist parties, still
need to be examined alongside other developments and over a longer time period.
Politics has indeed changed significantly in Bosnia, but democratization has not
advanced as quickly as hoped, and illiberal ethnic nationalistic rhetoric remains a
problem (McMahon and Western 2009). Bosniaks are “bitterly” divided between
those who see the current structure as “a temporary system, hardly worthy of their
attention,” and moderates who accept that structure and call for an “end to the
philosophy of victimhood and self-pity” (International Crisis Group 2009, p. 6).
Some contend that the Dayton Peace Accord itself, and the political structure it
created, have contributed to the reification of ethnicity and the enduring appeal
of ethnic nationalism (Chandler 1999; Bose 2002). The October 2006 elections,
deemed the most important since the war’s end because of the scheduled departure
of the UN’s Office of the High Representative (OHR), were fraught with national-
ist rhetoric and threats by leaders to split the country apart (Lippman 2006; Inter-
national Crisis Group 2007; International Crisis Group 2009). In fall 2008, Bos-
nia’s leading political parties reached an agreement that many hoped would pave
the way for constitutional reform. Instead, the process fueled yet another political
crisis, as Bosnian Serbs debated Montenegrin-style secession and Bosnian Croats
206
Table 8.1 Freedom House scores. (Source: Freedom House Nations in Transit Country Reports (n.d.). Note that the ratings are based on a scale of 1–7. A value
of 1 indicates the highest level of democratic progress, which embodies “the best policies and practices of liberal democracy” while a value of 7 indicates the
lowest level of democratic progress, or consolidated autocracies with widespread rights violations (Freedom House 2012). For further information on each of
these measures, see the “Nations in Transit: Methodology” web page (Freedom House 2012).)
Score Components 1999−2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Bosnia
Civil society 4.50 4.50 4.25 4.00 3.75 3.75 3.75 3.50 3.50 3.50 3.50
Independent media 5.00 4.50 4.25 4.25 4.25 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.25 4.50 4.50
National governance 6.00 6.00 5.50 5.25 5.00 4.75 4.75 4.75 5.00 5.00 5.25
Local governance 6.00 6.00 5.50 5.25 5.00 4.75 4.75 4.75 4.75 4.75 4.75
Corruption perceptions 6.00 5.75 5.50 5.00 4.75 4.50 4.25 4.25 4.25 4.50 4.50
Democracy score 5.42 5.17 4.83 4.54 4.29 4.18 4.07 4.04 4.11 4.18 4.25
Croatia
Civil society 3.50 2.75 2.75 3.00 3.00 3.00 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.75
Democracy score 4.46 3.54 3.54 3.79 3.83 3.75 3.71 3.75 3.64 3.71 3.71
Kosovo
Civil society 5.25 4.00 3.00 2.75 4.25 4.00 4.25 4.25 4.00 4.00 3.75
Democracy score 5.67 5.04 4.00 3.88 5.50 5.32 5.36 5.36 5.21 5.11 5.07
P. C. McMahon and J. L. Miller
Table 8.1 (continued)
Score Components 1999−2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Serbia
Civil society 5.25 4.00 3.00 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.50
Democracy score 5.67 5.04 4.00 3.88 3.83 3.75 3.71 3.68 3.79 3.79 3.71
8 After Violent Conflict: Justice, Well-being, and International Criminal Courts
207
pushed for territorial autonomy—a demand Bosniaks and Serbs rejected outright.
Haris Silajdžić, the Bosniak representative to the country’s 3-person presidency,
even called for the dissolution of the RS and the restructuring of Bosnia’s political
structure (Bilefsky 2008b). Meanwhile, Milorad Dodik, the Prime Minister of the
RS, has continued to use his power base to increase the authority of the entities.
Data from Freedom House confirm both the country’s democratic progress and its
stagnation, if not backsliding, since 2006. At the time of this writing in early 2012,
Bosnian democratization is quite mixed, and it remains a unified but fragile country
still burdened by the past and nationalistic appeals.
Croatian democratization has also been slow but has progressed steadily. Until
1999, Franjo Tuđman and the Croatian Democratic Part (HDZ) dominated Croatian
politics and “despite paying lip service to joining Western institutions, the Tuđman
regime did little to respect international norms” (Peskin and Boduszyński 2003,
p. 1124). Tuđman’s death in 1999 and the resounding victory of Račan’s coalition
in 2000 appeared to herald a new democratic era in Croatia; “Tudjmanism—the
mixture of authoritarianism, nationalism and socialism—[was] dead with its cre-
ator” (Wood 2003; Erlanger 2000, Para. 5). By 2002, Croatia was deemed a pioneer
of international justice (Pond 2006). Yet, these positive reports quickly gave way
when Račan aligned himself with the nationalist position on the Homeland War and
2 years after the democratic era broke out in Croatia, there were anti-ICTY pro-
tests. By 2003, Ivo Sanader became Prime Minister and declared that his primary
goals were democratization and membership in NATO and the EU (Pond 2006,
p. 134). Sanader’s leadership brought liberalization and cooperation with the ICTY
and although Croatian politics became more transparent, certain trends deterred sig-
nificant changes toward transitional justice. Namely, a new political approach was
embraced that prioritized “short-term personal gains over longer-term transparent
institution building” (Freedom House 2007, p. 6). Even with these setbacks, elec-
tions in 2007 were the most transparent, free, and fair in Croatia’s history, and dif-
ferent measures, particularly those related to cooperation with the ICTY, improved
(Freedom House 2008a). Croatia’s progress, and specifically its cooperation with
the ICTY, were rewarded in 2011 when Croatia signed a Treaty of Accession with
the EU.
In June 1999, UNMIK was established as an interim authority in the territory of
Kosovo. Domestic actors slowly became part and parcel of the international net-
work responsible for security and governance, and every administration that has
led Kosovo has been both pro-western and pro-liberal (Rezun 2001). Unable to
push the international community to resolve Kosovo’s status, in 2008 the Assembly
proclaimed that Kosovo was “an independent and sovereign state” (Bilefsky 2008a,
p. 1). Although Kosovar structures have taken on greater responsibility, NATO
and UNMIK continue to handle security and supervision of the country. Despite
internal disputes over transitional justice, Kosovo’s governments and most of the
political parties have adopted a moderate approach toward criminal accountability
that underscores cooperation with the ICTY and the need for broader political and
judicial changes. Freedom House data confirm that significant political changes
are underway in Kosovo, and in almost every category related to democratization

Kosovo remains—like the other countries in the region—a hybrid regime.
Serbian politics and democratization can be divided into two periods: the
Milošević and post-Milošević eras. Milošević lost power in Serbia in September
2000, though 7 years after the ICTY was established and only after elections that he
called. Serbia’s so-called democratic revolution had little sustained effect; ridding
the country of Milošević was an important step forward, but it was insufficient for
liberal change to take hold. Although the short-term impact of Milošević’s depar-
ture did not result in an immediate liberal shift, signs of progress were apparent
from 2000–2003. With the assassination of Serbia’s Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić,
in the spring of 2003, there was a return of nationalist politics, with the Serbian
Radical Party (SRS) winning the greatest number of votes. Yet, the return of the
SRS and the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) to the political scene was not a total
setback for liberal democracy, as both parties adopted pro-European slogans. With
the January 2008 presidential elections and parliamentary elections 4 months later,
more moderate, pro-European parties were back in power. Freedom House indices,
especially in 2009 and 2010, reflect these progressive changes. This, along with
the summer 2011 arrests of Mladić and Hadžić by Serb authorities, suggest that
although Serbia remains a hybrid regime, it is one that is coming to terms with the
past and on the road to democracy.
Rule of Law
Tables 8.2 and 8.3 provide some indication of how the rule of law is changing
throughout the region. Freedom House regards judicial developments in Balkan
countries quite similarly, as does the World Bank, which reveals that perceptions
of rule of law and the courts have improved in all Balkan states since 1998. The
following summaries provide details of the positive judicial developments in these
countries, as well as some of the challenges.
Significant resources have gone into strengthening rule of law in Bosnia, and a
new, if highly complex court structure currently exists, with national, state, and the
Brcko District courts (Barria and Roper 2008). This reflects Dayton’s institutional
structure, but it means the country’s judicial system suffers from numerous design
problems, with competing legal authorities undermining fair and effective trials
(Human Rights Watch 2006; Lowry and McMahon 2010). In July 2002, the State
Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (State Court) was established to create a uni-
fied national legal system; however, the State Court becomes involved only “upon
request from any of the Entity courts or Brcko courts,” leaving a legal vacuum
because no court is viewed as superior (Barria and Roper 2008, p. 321). Bosnia’s
special War Crimes Chamber (WCC) was created within the State Court in 2003 for
the specific purpose of handling cases transferred from the ICTY. The underlying
philosophy for the court’s creation was clear: “accountability for gross violations
of human rights… ultimately remains the responsibility of the people of Bosnia”
210
Table 8.2 Freedom House judicial independence scores. (Source: Freedom House Nations in Transit Country Reports (n.d.). Note that the ratings are based on
a scale of 1–7, with 1 indicating the highest and 7 indicating the lowest level of judicial independence. Judicial independence measures examine “constitutional
reform, human rights protections, criminal code reform, judicial independence, the status of ethnic minority rights, guarantees of equality before the law, treat-
ment of suspects and prisoners, and compliance with judicial decisions” (Freedom House 2012).)
Judicial Independence Scores 1999−2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Bosnia 6.00 5.50 5.25 5.00 4.50 4.25 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00
Croatia 4.75 3.75 3.75 4.25 4.50 4.50 4.25 4.25 4.25 4.25 4.25
Kosovo 5.75 5.50 4.25 4.25 6.00 5.75 5.75 5.75 5.75 5.75 5.75
Serbia 5.75 5.50 4.25 4.25 4.25 4.25 4.25 4.25 4.50 4.50 4.50
P. C. McMahon and J. L. Miller
Table 8.3 World Governance Indicators Rule of Law Rankings

%RVQLD
&URDWLD
.RVRYR 1$ 1$ 1$ 1$
6HUELD
WKWK SHUFHQWLOH WKWK SHUFHQWLOH

WKWK SHUFHQWLOH WKWK SHUFHQWLOH
(Human Rights Watch 2006, p. 2). Although the WCC has faced many challenges,
it has received significant support and in-kind assistance from the ICTY. In fact, the
planning and creation of this domestic court was the result of a “joint plan of action”
by the ICTY and Bosnia’s Office of the High Representative (OHR) (Orentlicher
2010, p. 21)
The WCC represents a valuable opportunity to build respect for the rule of law,
but there has been little progress in terms of trial completion. Some achievements
should not be overlooked, including the promotion of regional cooperation in war
crimes cases. In July 2005, the WCC entered into agreements with Croatian, Ser-
bian, and Montenegren authorities to enhance cooperation (Human Rights Watch
2006). The limited mandate and resources of the WCC continue to undermine its
effectiveness, and even under the best circumstances, this court can only try a few
cases each year (Barria and Roper 2008). Throughout its existence, however, the
WCC has worked closely with the ICTY, enjoying ongoing technical support from
this international institution as well as others, like the OSCE and the UN (Orentli-
cher 2010).
With Croatia’s establishment of special war crimes chambers in various district
courts, rule of law has progressed, if slowly. By 2007, over 800 war crimes trials
had been carried out with another 1500 investigations underway (Drumbl 2007).
These numbers, however, conceal a disturbing trend: a disproportionate number of
those prosecuted are Serbs and ethnic bias remains rampant. The Croatian Supreme
Court has consequently had to overturn between 55 and 90 % of trial court verdicts
(Drumbl 2007). At least some progress has been made with new witness protec-
tion laws and the dismissal of numerous unsubstantiated charges against minorities
(OSCE 2005). Another report noted that in handling cases that were transferred
to local courts, the Croatian courts were displaying “increased responsibility and
activity” (OSCE 2007). As in the case of Bosnia, Croatia’s domestic courts have
benefited from the assistance they have received from the ICTY, as well as other
international institutions. Although the ICTY worked with Croatia’s State Attorney
General to help develop the country’s domestic capacity to try cases transferred
from The Hague, ICTY officials acknowledged the court’s lack of preparedness in
this area. As a former ICTY prosecutor explained, “The ICTY was not designed to
help institutions;” yet, given the circumstances, the money and resources already
spent by the ICTY and the lack of alternatives, providing advice and transferring
knowledge became yet another way that the ICTY tried to improve rule of law
(Cruvellier and Valinas 2006).
While the general conduct of Croatian courts has been positive, a significant
number of witnesses have failed to appear due to threats and intimidation (Free-
dom House 2008b). However, national courts and the Supreme Court, where ethnic
bias is less severe, have made positive gains and are becoming increasingly profes-
sionalized, whereas the local court system “still suffers from significant abuse of
office and political influence from Zagreb” and has fewer staff (Freedom House
2008b, Para. 69). According to Freedom House analyses, although the situation is
improving, problems continue to plague Croatia’s judicial system that are unlikely
to disappear overnight, including a dearth of resources, excessive trial length, and
lack of enforcement of trial decisions (Freedom House 2006, 2008a).
Improving rule of law in Kosovo has been more challenging because Serbian
control over this territory included its judicial institutions. With Serbia’s retreat, any
semblance of a functioning legal system disappeared since most individuals work-
ing as judges, attorneys, and staff had been Serbs. In June 1999, the Special Rep-
resentative to the Secretary General issued an emergency decree, creating the Joint
Advisory Council on Provisional Judicial Appointments to fill positions left open
after NATO’s intervention. The Council subsequently recommended 55 candidates
to fill the openings and move forward with court restructuring. Yet, after years of
exclusion, many of the Albanians recommended to serve in the courts had lost a de-
cade of professional development and those who ultimately accepted the positions
also lacked experience. Since assembling the tangible and intangible necessities to
create a judicial system proved to be a massive task, the UN created internation-
alized hybrid courts (better known as the Regulation 64 Panels), which utilized
both foreign and domestic judges (Drumbl 2007). Primary jurisdiction for criminal
cases, however, remains with the ICTY. Although these courts are criticized by both
local and international advocates, they have proven more successful and impartial
than many local courts in the region.
As elsewhere in the region, there have been important legal developments in
Serbia. In July 2003, the Law on the Organization and Justification of State Organs
in Proceedings against Perpetrators of War Crimes created a special judiciary organ
to prosecute war crimes. This law was initially discounted because the members of
Serbia’s War Crimes Court were selected by the Serbian Assembly; yet by the end
of 2005, eight trials were held before this court and all were deemed “professional”
(Amnesty International 2005). In April 2007, a surprising ruling by the War Crimes
Court convicted four Serbs of war crimes against civilians, and in its first ruling
related to Srebrenica, the Belgrade judge said that guilt for these crimes was proven
beyond any doubt, suggesting that the country’s judiciary might indeed be heading
in the right direction (Wood 2007). Although the ICTY did not have a direct hand
in creating this Serbian court, interviews in Serbia suggest that it still played an
important indirect role. As Orentlicher notes, “Everyone we interviewed in Serbia
believes that such a court could not have functioned in Serbia until the political tran-
sition following the fall of Milošević—and most believe that the WCC would not
exist but for the ICTY” (Orentlicher 2008, pp. 19–20). The Tribunal, thus, was use-
ful in allowing reformist elements within Serbia a political space to begin addressing
the past. Even a spokesman for the Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor agrees that the
ICTY paved the way for the WCC because there was no will in Serbia to prosecute
war crimes alone; the process in The Hague thus pushed Serbs to address the past
on their own (Orentlicher 2008)
Attitudes Toward Transitional Justice and Peace
Given the lack of consistent public opinion polls in the Balkans, it is difficult to say
with any certainty what patterns exist. However, interviews with interlocutors in
Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia indicate that although many are dissatisfied with many
aspects of the ICTY and the progress of transitional justice, the ICTY has been a
“much needed tool to keep questioning the official discourse until society, or the
authorities, showed more readiness to think critically” (Cruvellier and Valinas 2006,
p. 11).
The international community in Bosnia is a concoction of disparate organiza-
tions, all of which have made reconciliation and peacebuilding central to their
missions. Yet, Bosnian attitudes toward the international community and its goals
are mixed. There is considerable support for the EU; in a 2006 poll, 48 % “agreed
strongly” that their country should be an EU member; by 2008, 66 % of Bosnians
indicated that membership is good thing (Gallup 2008).7 Among international or-
ganizations in 2002, the ICTY was the least trusted, with 51 % of Bosnians in the
Federation but only 4 % in the RS indicating that they had trust in the court (IDEA
2002).8 Interviews with individuals in Bosnia from June 2006 to July 2009, how-
ever, suggest that although attitudes toward the court are still heavily shaped by
ethnic identity, views are changing, and individuals in all three major ethnic groups
(Serbs, Croats, and Muslims) indicated that the ICTY has promoted justice for its
own sake, helped communities establish truth, and provided an “inestimably im-
portant measure of justice for victims” (Orentlicher 2010, p. 18). A recent Gallup
poll reflects some of these positive changes, with almost half of the country (49 %)
indicating that there is “certainly not” a chance for armed conflict in the Balkans in
the next 5 years, a significant change from 2006 when only 24 % said this (Balkan
Monitor 2010).9 The ICTY alone cannot be credited for producing such optimism
about peace in the region, but according to Orentlicher, among the Bosnians she
interviewed there was “a nearly universal belief” that however imperfect the perfor-
mance of the ICTY, when thinking about both justice for individuals and society, it
was absolutely necessary to establish the ICTY (2010, p. 36).
Bosnian society also boasts an impressive number of international and national
NGOs working throughout the country, although most assessments conclude that
Bosnian civil society remains weak and the NGO sector has changed little since
7
Based on face-to-face interviews with 2000 adults between December 2006 and January 2007.
Margin of error estimated at ± 2 % points.
8
The South Eastern Europe (SEE) involved a total of 10,000 face-to-face interviews conducted
during January and February 2002 in Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo, and also in Bosnia and
Herzegovina (with two separate surveys, one for the Federation and one for Republika Srpska),
Croatia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Romania.
9
Based upon interviews with 1000 or more individuals in each respective state.
the late 1990s (US Agency for International Development, 2007; McMahon and
Western 2009). US government evaluations characterize the non-governmental or-
ganization (NGO) sector as between “mid-transition” and “early transition,” with
NGOs just starting to play a role in policy issues by 2009 (Freedom House 2009).
The 2005 creation of RECOM, a coalition of grassroots NGOs that seeks to develop
a regional commission devoted to human rights violations, however, is a reminder
that the number of organizations is perhaps less important than the focus and
strength of these organizations. Three human rights organizations spearheaded the
RECOM effort: the Research and Documentation Center in Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Dokumenta in Croatia, and the Humanitarian Law Center in Serbia. The organizers
of this regional, grassroots effort explain that although they support the formal judi-
cial mechanisms for punishing war criminals, these mechanisms cannot satisfy the
victims’ need for information and truth-telling, and any efforts to establish a com-
prehensive understanding of human rights abuses during the wars needs to adopt a
regional approach.10
Croatian political elites have often adopted a more liberal tone than the masses
with respect to the ICTY and transitional justice. In fact, although some Croatian
leaders (Račan and Mesić) initially enjoyed substantial public approval, their poli-
cies toward the ICTY and justice found considerably less support among the popu-
lace. In particular, veterans of the Homeland War, an active civil society organiza-
tion, became the most vocal opponent of government cooperation with the ICTY.
Public opinion in Croatia has become more favorable to both EU and NATO mem-
bership, indicating that citizens wish to be less isolated from the rest of the world,
but this does not necessarily extend to the ICTY. Eurobarometer polls from 2005,
for example, demonstrate that when EU membership was tied to cooperation with
the ICTY, public support for joining the former declined (European Commission
2005).
Yet, even those who vigorously criticize the ICTY acknowledged its positive
effects on Croatian society. As a member of one political party put it in December
2005, “Even if people say there was too much pressure on Croatia, this constant
presence of prosecutions has helped a lot in limiting the myth of the hero. The ICTY
has kept the debate open [which] would have probably not happened without [its
presence]. Institutionally, we were not strong enough. It was helpful to have [pros-
ecutions take place] outside [Croatia]” (Cruvellier and Valinas 2006, p. 11). This
pragmatism toward the ICTY may be shaping attitudes about the future. Croatians
are, in fact, quite optimistic that war will not return to the region; 88 % of those
polled in 2010 indicated that armed conflict will “certainly not” or “probably not”
happen anywhere in the Balkans in the next 5 years (Balkan Monitor 2010). What’s
more, almost half of the country (47 %) thinks that ties to its neighbors in the region
are “not strong enough” (Balkan Monitor 2010).
In terms of activities in society, positive changes are also evident, with the fo-
cus of many NGOs shifting from human or minority rights to democratization and
transparency, mirroring the priorities of the EU and donor directives. And although
Author interviews in Sarajevo and Brcko, Bosnia and Pristina, Kosovo May 2011. See also the
10
website on the Rekom initiative at: http://www.zarekom.org.

the number of NGOs in Croatia is declining, many are increasingly active and in-
volved in transitional justice with numerous organizations claiming membership in
RECOM.11 A report for the International Center for Transitional Justice highlights
the important work of local and international NGOs: “besides the important but
limited contributions of the trials of the ICTY and the work of domestic courts,
the most visible truth-seeking efforts have been pursued by local and international
NGOs” (Cruvellier and Valinas 2006, p. 26).
Turning to Kosovo, public attitudes have in some ways changed quickly; data
suggest that 1 year after the war, the level of hatred among Albanians for Serbs
dropped precipitously, from 88.7 % in 1999 to 54 % in 2000 (Cardozo et al. 2005).12
However mistrust between the groups has not declined. The debates over Kosovo’s
independence widened the chasm between the majority and minority groups; Serbs
view Kosovo’s independence as destabilizing, whereas Albanians adopt the oppo-
site position (Nyiri and English 2008). This divide is also reflected in attitudes about
international intervention and transitional justice. Perceptions of international in-
stitutions, including the ICTY, are not surprisingly more positive among Albanians
than Serbs—over 50 % of Albanians see the ICTY as fair, in contrast with only 8 %
of Kosovar Serbs (Gallup 2007).13 As in most countries in the region, however, the
citizens of Kosovo are becoming more optimistic about the future, with almost half
of the Kosovars polled (47 %) indicating that they did not expect armed conflict in
the Balkans soon (Balkan Monitor 2010). Kosovar NGO activity remains high and
has expanded substantially; in 2000, for example, USAID registered 400 NGOs
working within Kosovo, although only 100 were regarded as “active” (2001).
Although Kosovo has been receptive to NGOs, it is not clear that they necessarily
embody positive or progressive attitudes about transitional justice or peace.
As elsewhere in the region, polls tracking Serbian attitudes toward transitional
justice and peace are scarce. The polls that do exist demonstrate both continued am-
bivalence and growing acceptance of the ICTY’s mandate and its place in broader
Western efforts to push for change. Only 11 % of the Serbs polled in 2003 com-
pletely approved of cooperation with the ICTY, but by January 2006, 16 % felt this
way, with 46 % viewing cooperation as a “necessarily evil” (International Republican
Institute 2006). Distrust of the ICTY may be a result of ignorance; in fact, in 2003,
64 % of Serbs indicated that they knew “a little” or “very little” about the ICTY
(Belgrade Centre for Human Rights 2003). In 2004, 42 % of those polled indicated
that they did not know that there were special judicial institutions for war crime trials
in Serbia, and 89 % of citizens did not or very rarely followed any war crimes trials
(Belgrade Centre for Human Rights 2004).14 Despite not knowing what the ICTY
11
See the extensive list on the Rekom initiative at: http://www.zarekom.org.
12
The authors employed a cross-sectional cluster sample survey. The survey was administered to
1,399 Kosovar Albanians living in 593 randomly selected households.
13
Results based on face-to-face interviews conducted in February 2007 with randomly selected
samples of about 1000 residents aged 15 and older in Kosovo, Serbia, and Albania. Margin of error
estimated at ± 4 %.
14
As in 2003, a 3-stage stratified sample was utilized; face-to-face interviews were conducted with
1245 individuals over age 18 in August 2004.
does, Serbs have a clear opinion about this international institution; in December
2009—although half of those polled had no or little knowledge of the ICTY—72 %
still held mostly or extremely negative views of the court (OSCE 2009).15 Inter-
views in Serbia indicate that even though many Serbs do not agree with how the
court has behaved, they still believe that Serbian society must acknowledge that
atrocities were committed, and that “the ICTY plays a crucial and necessary role in
this process” (Orentlicher 2008, p. 40). Moreover, the ICTY has helped educate the
public on certain legal processes and what defendants are entitled to when they are
brought before a court (Orentlicher 2008, p. 51).
In Serb society, there are also important grassroots organizations that have
aligned their organization’s mission with those Western actors and the ICTY in par-
ticular, hoping to change public attitudes toward transitional justice and addressing
the past. After significant growth in the 1990s, the nongovernmental sector stagnat-
ed by 2005; yet, according to USAID, the most successful and well-known NGOs
are those that are focused on reconciliation and human rights (USAID 2010). Since
2003, Freedom House has given Serbian civil society a rating of 2.75—almost
within the range for a consolidated democracy. Several NGOs stand out in their at-
tempt to confront Serbia’s nationalist past, including the Humanitarian Law Center
(HLC). Without exaggerating the importance of any single organization, it is fair to
say that attitudes are shifting and progressive changes are underway in Serb society.
Conclusion
Although the ICTY was slated to complete its mandate by December 2010, its work
continues today. As ICTY prosecutor Serge Brammertz explained, “there is still
much left to be done and the progress must be faster” (ICTY 2010, Para. 5). Given
that the primary prosecutorial aims of the court have nearly been met, it is important
to consider what effect the court has had upon the larger goals of conflict resolution.
While this study does not constitute a comprehensive examination of all possible
transitional justice outcomes, it does indicate that the secondary goal of restoring
and promoting peace is being witnessed at a slow but rather uniform pace across
the region. It may be too early to declare that conflict resolution has been obtained,
but the movement toward positive results, as reflected in democratization trends,
expanded rule of law, and changing attitudes toward justice and peace, is palpable.
In this chapter, our larger argument mimics that of Jelena Subotić and touches
upon many of the central themes noted in her work on expanding accountability. As
Subotić argues, the current approach to and conceptualization of accountability is in-
adequate to address the underlying causes of mass violence perpetrated in cases such
as that which transpired in the Yugoslav Wars. We similarly view the approach to
15
This survey was conducted in partnership with the Belgrade Centre on Human Rights. A 3-stage,
stratified, representative sampling process was utilized; 1400 face-to-face interviews were con-
ducted with individuals over the age of 16. The sample was expanded for groups of particular
interest, including the young (16–23), Albanians, and Bosniaks.
measuring transitional justice outcomes as too limited—the mandates of institutions

such as the ICTY envision a greater role for these courts than simple prosecution.
If scholars continue to focus solely upon immediate compliance in terms of arrest
records or trials, academic research misses the opportunity to see a larger web of in-
terconnected outcomes that emanate from the pursuit of justice and peace. Although
international courts (and the states involved) may suffer from a limited approach to
accountability or may have failed to deliver the level of progress that they promised,
this does not mean that important changes are not taking place or that the significant
challenges which arise after violent conflict make justice and well-being impossible.
A secondary but related theme which emerges from Subotić’s work is that of en-
gaging in “more substantive, sustained, and deep transitional justice projects” (see
Subotić, Chap. 10). Our attempt to do just that has led us to a new research question:
to what degree do institutions such as the ICTY contribute directly to outcomes as-
sociated with justice and well-being? As we have already acknowledged throughout
this analysis, it is impossible to attribute any changes directly to the ICTY alone.
However, it is also important to note that international courts themselves foster and
develop deep transitional justice projects through their relationships with powerful
political actors; in the case of the ICTY, this has come about through alliances with
the US, EU, UN, and World Bank among others. Diane Orentlicher has asserted
that the ICTY has been crucial to positive developments within Serbia and Croa-
tia (2008). The productive and interpretive power of the ICTY (not to mention its
considerable level of expertise) have positioned it to be a unique contributor to the
attainment of justice and well-being in the Balkans. In a network of actors working
to achieve these outcomes, the ICTY appears to have served as an agent of change
through its networked agenda-setting power.
To conclude, this analysis strongly suggests that research on transitional justice,
particularly international criminal courts, should consider other, broader outcomes in
addition to arrests and prosecutions. As the Balkans and other regions move beyond
adjudication, it is this broader criterion that scholars and policymakers alike need
to adopt in assessments both of transitional justice mechanisms and the aftermath
that follows. With respect to conflict resolution, it appears that any mechanisms that
are adopted by international actors will require extensive cooperation with powerful
state actors. Networked power, like that employed by the ICTY, will be a necessity
to ensure any level of success in terms of accountability, justice, or well-being.
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Chapter 9
Complexity of Accountability for Mass Atrocity
Jelena Subotić
The Impact of International Criminal Trials:

The Long View
In a wonderful addition to the ever-strengthening field of transitional justice, the

chapter by Patrice McMahon and Jennifer Miller (see Chap. 8.) joins the debate by
arguing, forcefully, that any evaluation of international transitional justice mecha-
nisms, specifically those implemented by the International Criminal Tribunal for
the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), needs to take a long view. Too many studies, Mc-
Mahon and Miller argue, were quick to pass judgment on the impact of ICTY trials
on the states and societies of the former Yugoslavia. Previous scholars have been
either too optimistic or forgiving in their accounts of the ICTY’s impact, or were too
quick to point to flaws in the design of these international institutions and the con-
tinuing, intractable cycle of ethnic mistrust and democratic instability in the region.
In arguing for a long view, McMahon and Miller propose that we look at four
specific factors in evaluating the impact of the ICTY in the Balkans: seriousness and
independence of criminal prosecutions of war crimes suspects; level of democrati-
zation; rule of law; and attitudes toward transitional justice in the former Yugoslav
states. If there is improvement along these four dimensions, McMahon and Miller
argue, we can begin to trace the positive outcomes of international criminal trials
as the seeds of not only justice but also democratic institution building as well as
sustainable peace.
Some of the material in this paper appeared, in a different form, in my article “Expanding the
scope of postconflict justice: Individual, state and societal responsibility for mass atrocity.”
Journal of Peace Research, 48(2), 157–169 (2011).
J. Subotić ()
Department of Political Science, Georgia State University, Atlanta, USA
e-mail: jsubotic@gsu.edu
224 J. Subotić
In their excellent empirical sections, the authors find quite a bit of evidence that
there has been significant, although perhaps not fully satisfactory, improvement
along these four dimensions. What is most interesting, perhaps, is the relatively
similar degree of progress in otherwise quite different political environments in
the four states the paper covers: Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, and Kosovo. Nonetheless,
several questions need to be further explored. First, against what point in time and
place are we comparing these states? In other words, there is progress compared to
the immediate postwar years, but not as much progress as the countries themselves
promised, nor as much progress as international actors, such as the European Union
(EU), expected as they continue to deliver carrots of hope for EU membership.
Second, what exactly is the role of the EU and EU conditionality (cooperation with
the ICTY in exchange for EU membership), and how did EU pressures differ across
these different cases? Third, some states have clearly made more progress (e.g.,
Croatia) than others (e.g., Bosnia). With Croatia’s accession to the EU this year, will
the difference in Croatia’s level of progress be even more manifest, or will the issue
of dealing with the past completely disappear from the Croatian political agenda?
Finally, how do we measure the rule of law? While there are clearly positive
developments such as the regional cooperation between war crimes prosecutors
that the paper mentions, the problems of judicial independence continue to plague
the region. Political appointment of judges, the control by political parties of these
judicial appointments, and the pervasive corruption of both the judicial sector and
the political parties themselves continue to be of great concern. Even the most suc-
cessful of the four states, Croatia, has to deal with the embarrassment of having a
former prime minister, Ivo Sanader—himself instrumental in cooperation with the
ICTY—currently on criminal trial for corruption. The rule of law, it seems to me,
has a long way to go.
And so while I applaud and appreciate the work done on this issue by McMahon
and Miller and others, I want to shift gears somewhat and analyze ways in which we
can complicate this story. I want to argue that whatever the impact of international
trials may be, the problem with the way we currently conceptualize accountability
for mass atrocity is the focus on individual criminal accountability. I will argue
that we need to open up that space to include two other levels of accountability or
atrocity—state and societal accountability. I believe that only with such a multilayer
accountability for atrocity will the path to justice truly begin.
The Paradox of Accountability for Mass Atrocity
When Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb wartime leader accused of genocide,
crimes against humanity and war crimes by the ICTY, was arrested in Belgrade
in July 2008, Human Rights Watch declared the arrest “a step toward redress for
Bosnian victims and families who have suffered horribly” (Human Rights Watch
2008). After more than a decade in hiding, the man accused of some of the worst
atrocities in Europe since World War II was finally to face justice.
9 Complexity of Accountability for Mass Atrocity 225
This arrest was also very useful politically. Since Serbia is required by the EU
to fully cooperate with the ICTY as condition for its member candidate status, the
Serbian government placed the arrest in the context of its European accession plans.
Karadzic’s arrest demonstrated that the Serbian government had a “very ambitious
European agenda,” Serbia’s foreign minister declared (B92, July 22, 2008). The EU
officials also claimed credit, arguing that the arrest was the result of sustained Eu-
ropean pressures on Serbia, its clever use of European “soft power” (Smyth 2008).
Karadzic’s arrest, however, did little to change the understanding of the past in
Serbia. So many years after the end of the war in Bosnia, with so much evidence of
Serbian crimes presented in war crimes trials at The Hague, the Serbian public still
refused to accept that horrific crimes were committed in their name. A survey con-
ducted right after Karadzic’s arrest discovered that a third of the respondents saw
Karadzic as a hero, and only 17 % as a war criminal; while the vast majority (86 %)
considered the ICTY biased against the Serbs (B92, July 25, 2008). Furthermore,
the Serbian government portrayed this arrest as the event that would finally put an
end to international demands for Serbia to address its violent past. “The Hague story
must end” (Radio Free Europe, April 13, 2009), said a Serbian government minister.
I argue in this chapter that the main reason postconflict justice often has dis-
appointing domestic outcomes is that the contemporary justice framework that is
based fundamentally on individual criminal accountability is poorly suited for col-
lective crimes such as crimes against humanity. It also leads to undesirable conse-
quences, as governments will support individual trials in order to protect the state
and society from accountability for them. To remedy this paradox, I propose a post-
conflict justice framework that includes individual, state, and societal responsibility
for mass atrocity.
After offering a short overview of the contemporary paradigm of individual
criminal accountability, I present reasons why we need additional levels of responsi-
bility—state and societal—to deal with legacies of mass violence more completely.
Contemporary Transitional Justice Framework
The broad field of transitional justice is anchored in the assumption that finding out
the truth about past atrocities, identifying the perpetrators, and punishing them ap-
propriately achieves justice by ending impunity (Mendeloff 2004).1 Human rights
trials such as those at The Hague are significant because they serve a retributive
function of justice, and can also deter potential human rights abusers from commit-
ting atrocities in the future. This increasingly strong expectation at the international
1
While many of the mechanisms I describe below could more precisely be described as mecha-
nisms of international criminal justice, I use the term “transitional justice” to incorporate a much
wider variety of tools for addressing past wrongs. International criminal justice, as has developed
over the past few decades, uses primarily the mechanisms of trials (of individuals, and increasingly
less often, states). The mechanisms of transitional justice with many non-trial-type instruments
offer a broader spectrum of possibilities that I want to explore.
226 J. Subotić
level that postconflict states will legally deal with legacies of past violence has
produced a number of separate justice mechanisms. Transitional justice processes
have been carried out through international and domestic trials of human rights
violators, truth commissions, as well as reparations, lustration, museums or sites of
commemoration, apologies, community initiatives, or other unofficial mechanisms
(Roht-Arriaza and Mariezcurrena 2006). In fact, so unprecedented has the prolifera-
tion of various transitional justice mechanisms been that more than two-thirds of all
transitional states in the past 20 years have instituted or debated instituting some
mechanism of transitional justice (Sikkink and Walling 2007).
In the case of human rights trials, the individual accountability demanded is
criminal and the justice delivered retributive. Some truth commissions and com-
munity initiatives understand accountability to be primarily moral (Gutmann
and Thompson 2000). Other community efforts, for example the gacaca trials in
Rwanda, produce yet different kinds of sanctions, such as community service (Daly
2002). In all these different mechanisms, however, the principal focus of the post-
conflict justice process is the individual accountability of the perpetrator. In fact,
such is the dominance of individual approaches to transitional justice that we are
possibly witnessing the institutionalization of individual accountability as the pri-
mary regulatory mechanism in human rights, with the International Criminal Court
as the pinnacle of this dramatic change (Sikkink 2009).
Individual criminal accountability provides for punishment that is effective and
enforceable, an improvement over vague sanctions historically placed on the state.
For too many years, perpetrators of gross human rights violations, often including
heads of state, were shielded by the state or were immune to prosecution under
norms of sovereignty (Lutz and Reiger 2009). The focus on individual criminal
responsibility has made impunity for mass violence much more difficult to tolerate,
and governments have found that their own citizens are asking for more account-
ability for serious human rights abuses occurring beyond their borders (Lutz and
Sikkink 2001).
The pointed focus on individual criminal accountability, however, leads to sev-
eral paradoxical outcomes. While a significant step toward ending impunity and
offering a sense of justice for the victims, governments can use it to protect the state
from its own responsibility for crimes. If individuals are convicted of atrocities, this
may remove the pressure from states to issue apologies or reparations or other types
of redress. While West Germany did pay considerable reparations to Holocaust sur-
vivors and state reparations to Israel (Honig 1954), and the Nuremberg trials of in-
dividual Nazi officers did not create obstacles for reparations, the historical moment
in which these reparations were offered was unique and has not been repeated since.
The reparations agreement was signed in 1952, when the memories of the Holocaust
were fresh, and the international community was willing to support massive and
expensive financial commitments (West Germany in the early 1950s was financially
supported through the Marshall Plan, hence Germany’s generosity toward Israel was
in large part underwritten by American money). Partly as the result of the perceived
success of the Nuremberg trials, the individual accountability model has, since the
end of World War II, and especially since the 1980s, taken considerable precedence
over other justice models, including mechanisms of reparative justice, such as state
apologies or state reparations (Lutz and Reiger 2009; Sikkink 2011).
More important for my argument, the focus on individual criminal accountability
may remove the urgency of addressing the causes of crimes and the policies that
produced them. Governments can point to trials of high-profile perpetrators and ar-
gue that justice has been done, and it is time to move on (Cohen 2003). In fact, this
is exactly the strategy that the governments of Serbia and Croatia have used in sup-
porting the trials of high ranking officials accused of genocide and crimes against
humanity. By supporting individual trials, the governments were able to preempt
calls for state responsibility, and even use the trials to put forward the narrative of
individual, isolated crimes that are removed from Serbian and Croatian state war-
time efforts (Subotić 2009).
The claim that individual criminal accountability is becoming the principal
regulation of mass atrocity may, therefore, be premature as well as undesirable
from the perspective of postconflict justice goals. In addition to individual pros-
ecutions, states are still filing claims against each other for crimes against human-
ity in front of international courts. For example, Bosnia recently filed a genocide
claim against Serbia in front of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), a lawsuit
that created great international attention and significant political consequence in
the region (Dimitrijević and Milanović 2008). In 2007, the court found that Bos-
nian Serb troops, and not the Serbian state had committed genocide in Bosnia. The
Serbian state, therefore, was found not guilty of committing genocide, but it was
deemed responsible for failing to prevent the genocide from happening since it
had direct links with the political and military leadership of the Bosnian Serbs and,
presumably, was aware of impending atrocities. The verdict was interpreted in
Serbia as vindication, followed by massive financial relief since Serbia would not
be responsible for paying any reparations to Bosnian victims. Bosnian survivors
and political elites were disappointed, even outraged at the verdict, because they
assumed enough incriminating evidence against Serbian leaders had already been
recovered at the prior ICTY trials. The issue of financial compensation was further
disappointing, because the Bosnian press widely circulated the expected payoff to
be in the vicinity of US$ 100 billion (Numanovic 2006). The already tense rela-
tions between Bosnia and Serbia have only been exacerbated in the aftermath of
the ruling.
In the next section, I discuss both theoretical and normative reasons for why
state accountability for mass atrocity should remain part of international regulatory
mechanisms in the field of human rights.
228 J. Subotić
State Accountability for Mass Atrocity
The most obvious reason to keep state accountability as part of the postconflict
justice framework is that serious human rights abuses are quite often crimes of the
state—not isolated incidents by rank and file soldiers, but efforts so massive in scale
that they can only be successfully implemented by an organized state apparatus
(Lang 2007). Focusing only on individual perpetrators therefore disconnects the
crime from a broader state policy that made the atrocities possible in the first place.
The importance of maintaining state accountability for most serious human rights
violations is also clear in the many postconflict justice mechanisms states use that
require at least a degree of state responsibility: offering state apologies or repara-
tions to victims are principally state actions which implicitly accept the responsibil-
ity of the state for past violence.
It is important to differentiate here the state from the regime. I define the state in
a Weberian sense, as an entity that claims monopoly on the legitimate use of vio-
lence on a given territory. I define regimes in this context as periods of continuous
control of the state apparatus by a single political faction or leader. Institutions of
the state, therefore, go beyond individual regimes. A political transition, therefore,
is not the end of the state; it is the end of the regime. The state continues to func-
tion and use its monopoly of force to carry on its policies. If the new regime takes
over state instruments of power, it can also use these instruments to deal with past
wrongs.
State accountability for mass atrocity is not a novel idea. Thomas Franck argued
that “when the state commits a great evil, it cannot be allowed to escape responsibil-
ity by the punishment of a few leaders” (Franck 2007, p. 569). Lang claimed that
individual accountability for mass atrocity is insufficient as individuals in warfare
act as and through institutional structures of the state (Lang 2007). Individuals dur-
ing war rarely make decisions with complete autonomy from the state and outside
a specific political context. Instead, “they act based on a social understanding of
war and their particular role in that collective enterprise” (Crawford 2007, p. 190).
They act on behalf of the state that has devised the specific policy that led to atroc-
ity. In fact, contemporary research on mass atrocity has provided ample evidence
that mass killings, such as those in Nazi Germany, Stalinist Soviet Union, or Maoist
China were the direct result of state power and were carried out with limited active
support of broader society (Valentino 2004).
The dependence on individual criminal accountability for mass atrocity is, there-
fore, not sufficient to deal with the complex relationship between the individual and
the state during mass violence. Individuals should, of course, be held accountable
for crimes they have committed. But so should the states that ordered, organized,
and implemented the policies of violence. Accountability for atrocity should be of-
ficial if it is to matter. Something good should come from a history of violence—
official state apology, reparations, or state supported commemorations and sites of
memory. These projects will not be produced in trials of individual perpetrators if
the state disconnects itself from the policy the perpetrator put in practice.
This, however, is still not enough. Neither the individual perpetrators nor the
state act in a vacuum. Even the most totalitarian of states are to some degree prod-
ucts of their social environments and contexts, which allowed for the institutional-
ization of a totalitarian regime to happen. What is needed, therefore, is another level
of accountability for mass crimes carried out by individuals on orders by the state.
This is the societal responsibility for atrocity, the third pillar in the current architec-
ture of postconflict justice theory and policy.
Societal Responsibility for Mass Atrocity
I define society as an enduring social group whose members have developed or-
ganized and institutionalized patterns of relationships through interaction with one
another, and who act under the structural constraints of the state in which they live.
I clearly distinguish the concept of “society” from that of the “nation,” which is an
imagined community of people who share a belief in common culture, traditions,
interests, and purpose. This differentiation is important because my conceptualiza-
tion of societal responsibility involves responsibility of citizens of offending states
on the basis of citizenship and societal membership, and not on the basis of their
national identity or other kinds of “deeply rooted” cultural similarities. Citizens of
Nazi Germany or 1990s Serbia are responsible for atrocities of their state because
they provided a permissive social and political environment for the atrocities to take
place, and did not do enough to prevent them. Their responsibility does not come
from some inherent national flaw or genocidal intent. This is my primary point
of departure from cultural explanations of mass atrocity (for example, Goldhagen
1996).
In order for society to have responsibility, it must have agency. Since the state
is the agent or representative of its citizens, members of society can also bear some
responsibility for creating, approving, or building a social and political context
in which state-led atrocities could have taken place (Parrish 2009). Citizens can
also be held responsible for agreeing to and materially supporting—for example,
through taxation—state policies that led to mass atrocity. These citizens, even in
democracies, have either allowed these policies to move forward, or have failed to
stop them. They can be held morally accountable because they failed to distance
themselves from such criminal practices. They bear societal responsibility for mass
atrocity.
Individual leaders, I argue, should not be the only ones responsible for mass
violence since their actions did not appear out of thin air. They created their policies
on a societal receptivity to violent claims that were broadly accepted, normalized,
and routinized in society and provided criminal policies with a patina of legitimacy.
This normalization of violence creates a “complicity cascade”—a social and politi-
cal environment where carrying out acts of mass violence “becomes a product of
conformity and collective action, and not delinquency and individual pathology”
(Drumbl 2007, p. 8).
230 J. Subotić
Adding a third dimension of accountability is also significant from the perspec-

tive of international law. The selection of a few individuals to be punished for sys-
temic mass violence does not adequately address the problem that victims of mass
atrocity are brutalized because of their group belonging (e.g., ethnicity, religion,
gender, race), and usually by perpetrators who act on behalf of their groups. This
centrality of the individual in international criminal law often in practice means that
“the enemy of humankind is punished no differently than a car thief” (Drumbl 2007,
p. 5). The centrality of the individual therefore leaves bystanders, people actively
or tacitly complicit in atrocities or benefiting materially or socially from atrocity,
completely outside the reach of international criminal law (Fletcher 2005).
From the perspective of normative postconflict justice goals, societal responsi-
bility is necessary to fight denial of atrocity in the society of perpetrators. Exclusive
focus on individualizing guilt is in direct tension with the goal of countering denial
of broad social complicity in mass crimes (Leebaw 2008). In fact, if individualizing
guilt is successful, it offers society a way out, an opportunity to project the responsi-
bility to a few select individuals and deny one’s own culpability for massive crimes
that were committed in one’s name. This is how “myths of collective innocence” are
created and perpetuated (Fletcher and Weinstein 2002, p. 580).
The inadequacy of individual criminal accountability to fully deal with mass
atrocity should by now be clear. While philosophy and political theory have dealt
with problems of collective and social responsibility at length and in depth (May
and Hoffman 1991; Radzik 2001), contemporary postconflict justice scholarship
has been resistant to incorporating these ideas into theory and practice. This is per-
haps understandable strategically, as the concepts of collective responsibility have
often been incorrectly conflated with collective guilt—a proposition that at times
makes liberal internationalists uncomfortable (Branscombe and Doosje 2004).
Practically, as well, designing policies to deal with societal responsibility is difficult
and very much prone to politicization and backlash. Postconflict justice advocates
may therefore fear that by dealing with responsibility of everyone, they may end up
with responsibility of no one. While I take these objections seriously, the negative
consequences of conceptualizing responsibility for mass atrocity as being solely, or
primarily, in the domain of individual criminal accountability, are greater than the
complications that will inevitably follow as we design mechanisms to deal with so-
cietal responsibility for mass atrocity. The focus on individual accountability is not
only inevitably limiting in scope—only a few individuals will ever stand trial—but
individualization of accountability will almost certainly be used as an escape hatch
for bystanders, conflict architects, and everyday citizens who supported, approved
of, and cheered for success of the criminal endeavor.
I therefore argue for a three-tier framework that would address different aspects
of mass atrocity, and possible mechanisms of dealing with atrocity legacies.
Individual criminal accountability should be the option of first resort. Direct
perpetrators, leaders, and officials who ordered the atrocity, as well as political ar-
chitects of the criminal policy should be held criminally liable. There are many
debates within postconflict justice and international law on how these trials should
be designed, where they should be located, and what should be the appropriate
punishment of the convicted (Roper and Barria 2006). The precise mechanisms of
trials are not of my immediate interest here. I am more concerned with ensuring
that as many perpetrators of all ranks—from rank and file to heads of state—are
prosecuted in an appropriate and proportional manner.
The second pillar of any postconflict justice policy should be attribution of state
responsibility for mass atrocity. For example, victim states can file claims for repa-
rations in front of international courts. A preferred mechanism would be for the
state implicated in mass crimes to offer apologies or provide reparations on its own
prompting, without the instruments of international law. This may not be that far-
fetched to imagine. A willingness to engage state responsibility for past violence
can be politically useful for new governments, as they use postconflict justice to
demonstrate a clear break with the past.
The third pillar of transitional justice—societal responsibility for mass atroc-
ity—is the most important. It is only through a societal reckoning with the crimi-
nal past that the pernicious ideologies that produced the atrocity could be delegiti-
mized. Societal responsibility provides “normative discontinuity with the bad past”
(Dimitrijević 2006a). Victims of atrocities should know that the group in whose
name atrocity was carried out has come to realize that what was done was wrong
and would not be repeated. And it is particularly necessary, indeed imperative, for
the perpetrator society to come to an understanding that what was done was wrong,
that it was not how a decent society operates, and that politics must change. In the
absence of this type of accountability, political ideologies will remain the same and
a new cycle of violence can begin.
The truth commission model can be especially useful to this kind of endeavor.
This public body would collect evidence from victims, broadly disseminate these
testimonies, and put them in a proper political context of the time when atrocities
were committed. The commission could systematically articulate why the policies
of the past were criminal, and what were possible political alternatives to the choice
of engaging in violence. This could be an opportunity to debunk chauvinistic or
exclusionary ideologies and replace them with a normative framework of civic en-
gagement and tolerance. What a national commission or a similar institution that
would systematically deal with legacies of the past would offer is more than transi-
tional justice. It would offer “transformative justice,” where principal social norms,
values, beliefs, and understandings are shifted so that society can be just and decent
again (Allen 1999).
Finally, postconflict states should implement comprehensive education reform,
which includes textbook and curriculum reform that clearly presents evidence of
crimes committed, the nature of the conflict, and the political environment that
made the atrocities possible and even popular among wide segments of society.
They should promote media professionalization, specialization, and education in
the field of transitional justice—how to investigate war crimes, how to write about
them, how to present evidence, and how to protect the victims. Postconflict states
should also create national days of memory for victims of atrocities their own troops
232 J. Subotić
have committed, and set up museums or other types of memorial sites to remember
victims and survivors. Regardless of the model chosen, systematically addressing
societal norms, values, beliefs, and practices should be a priority of any postconflict
government.
To conclude, my goal in this chapter was twofold. First, I aimed to analytically
distinguish three categories of responsibility for mass atrocity: individual, state, and
societal. Second, I argued that the central focus of transitional justice on individual-
izing responsibility is misguided, inadequate, and counterproductive.
I have advocated a maximalist interpretation of transitional justice, which in-
cludes all three types of responsibility and designs proper policy mechanisms to
address them. Expanding the scope of transitional justice to seriously include state
and societal culpability is important for the victims of atrocity, but it is also essen-
tial for the society that produced the perpetrators. It is important for the health of
the nation to distinguish right from wrong. It is important for the society to accept
that human rights abuses, war crimes, and genocide are wrong. Understanding and
acknowledging the difference between appropriate and inappropriate ways to act
in politics and manage conflict is necessary for bringing back a lost sense of jus-
tice in the society that was complicit in massive human rights abuses (Dimitrijević
2006b).
Transitional justice scholars and policymakers should engage in more substan-
tive, sustained, and deep transitional justice projects beyond merely counting the
number of individual indictments and length of convictions and sentences. They
should promote comprehensive education and media reform in the field of human
rights more generally, and transitional justice specifically. Domestic political lead-
ers can be socialized, persuaded, and rewarded for opening the black box of the
past in a way that is politically responsible. New generations of political elites can
be educated to understand and appreciate the significance of separating right from
wrong for the future of their country.
Finally, political elites—domestic and international—should do all they can to
strengthen the political culture of human rights. Whether or not a state cooperates
with an international tribunal and conducts domestic trials is not the best indicator
of a state’s commitment to human rights. Only when stories of the past are wide
open—when people can talk about what happened, how, and why—will the path to
justice truly begin.
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Part V
Justice Outside of Court: Alternative
Dispute Resolution
Chapter 10
Advancements in Arbitral Immunity
and Judicial Review of Arbitral Awards
Create Ethical Loopholes in Arbitration
Kristen M. Blankley
Introduction
A colleague practicing law once asked me: Is it ethical to destroy documents in ar-
bitration? I was surprised by the question. Why would it be ethical or just to destroy
documents simply because the dispute resolution forum is something other than liti-
gation? Would not the same rationale for preservation of documents apply equally
to litigation as arbitration? Similarly, what about the rules regarding truthful testi-
mony? Do those need to be followed in the arbitral forum? What makes arbitration
so different that licensed attorneys had questions about whether or not fundamental
rules of fairness and justice applied to conflicts in the arbitral forum?
After looking into the issue, I found that the answers to these questions surprised
me even more than the questions did. An examination of the criminal statutes and the
common law developments over the years shows that arbitration, in some respects,
has taken on some characteristics of litigation while other, complementary charac-
teristics have yet to be applied in the arbitral forum. I discovered that the justice
expected in the litigation system might not be the same as that afforded in arbitration.
Consider, for example, the issue of absolute, or “judicial,” immunity—which
is the immunity granted not only to judges but also to all participants in the ju-
dicial forum that prevents litigation participants from being sued for defamation
and other torts based on the testimony given in court. Applying this concept to ar-
bitration makes wise sense. The policies underlying “judicial” immunity include
giving fact-finders needed information for decision-making, encouragement for
those seeking redress of wrongs, and personal security for those who would give
testimony. These policies apply equally—if not more so—to the arbitral forum.
Thanks to the Program of Excellence for allowing me to present this work at the December 2011
conference. Thanks, also, to Dean Susan Poser, Richard Moberly, Bob Schopp, Brian Bornstein,
Charlie Hendrix, and Karlus Cozart for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. Thanks to Mike
Douglass for his love and support.
K. M. Blankley ()
College of Law, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68583-0902, USA
e-mail: kblankley2@unl.edu
238 K. M. Blankley
Courts, through the common law, have rightly begun to extend this doctrine to the
arbitral forum.
Bestowing judicial immunity on the court system, however, has never given liti-
gation participants the right to lie with impunity or otherwise act in an unjust man-
ner. The criminal law serves as an important backstop to punish those who commit
wrongdoing within the judicial system and deter people from so doing. In other
words, if a person gives false and defamatory testimony during a trial, the victim
of the alleged defamatory statement cannot sue the declarant for money damages—
but that person could talk with the local prosecutor and try to have perjury or other
charges1 brought against the declarant under the criminal law.
For arbitration, however, these criminal laws do not apply. Presumably, then,
arbitration participants (other than attorneys who are bound by certain ethical stan-
dards) may be able to lie or destroy evidence without any consequence whatsoever.
This disconnect is what I consider to be the “loophole” in arbitration ethics, creating
an injustice in the arbitral system. One obvious way to close this loophole would
be to extend the criminal laws to the arbitral forum. By extending the criminal law
to arbitration, the punitive and deterrent effects of the criminal law would close the
loophole created by the bestowing of immunity on the arbitral process.
This loophole, however, is exacerbated by an odd development in the law regard-
ing judicial review of fraudulent conduct within the judicial forum. The Federal
Arbitration Act (FAA) contains very limited grounds for judicial review, largely
relating to issues outside of the arbitral process. Grounds for review of arbitration
awards generally relate to bias, misconduct, or arbitrators acting outside of their
scope of authority. For the most part, courts review arbitration awards on a de novo
basis to determine if the award fits within one of these limited standards of review.
With respect to party misconduct, or “fraud,” the courts have instituted an extraor-
dinarily high burden on the party seeking to have the award vacated. This burden is
unlike any of the other grounds for review of arbitration awards. Making a uniform
burden of proof for vacatur of arbitral awards would alleviate some of this burden
and incentivize a fairer arbitral forum.
This chapter explores these issues in greater detail. Part II of this chapter demon-
strates how evolutions in the area of arbitral immunity and the difficulties regarding
judicial review make the arbitral forum particularly ripe for ethical violations to
occur without redress. Part III of this chapter demonstrates that state laws dealing
with witness tampering and lying under oath do not currently apply to the arbitral
forum, concluding that minor modifications to existing criminal law would make
arbitration a fairer and more just forum. Part IV examines the standards of judicial
review available for arbitral awards for participant misconduct, compared to other
types of judicial review, concluding that the review for fraud should be the same as
the review for every other type of arbitral award. By closing these “loopholes,” the
arbitral forum will help resolve conflict in a more just manner.
1
Other types of laws, such as obstruction of justice, might also apply.
10 Advancements in Arbitral Immunity and Judicial Review … 239
The Evolution of Arbitral Immunity Creates

an Ethical Loophole
The application of absolute or judicial2 immunity to the arbitral forum inadvertently

creates an ethical loophole for those participating in the arbitral forum. Judicial im-
munity is a concept that immunizes litigation participants from suits for defamation
based on statements made in the litigation.3 Most often, the concept of judicial im-
munity applies to bar defamation suits, but the immunity applies to any civil cause
of action that “sounds in defamation”4 such as intentional infliction of emotional
distress, unfair competition, conspiracy, and many other types of actions based on
harms stemming from words used in official forums, like courtrooms.5
Under the defense of absolute immunity, the intention of the speaker and the
extent of the harm do not matter. As the California Court of Appeals once noted:
“the immunity of a suit for damages at issue is not dependent on the severity of the
misconduct.”6 The otherwise defamatory statement could be an oral statement, or
2
This chapter will use the terms “judicial immunity” and “absolute immunity” interchangeably.
Different jurisdictions use different names for the immunity. Essentially, the type of immunity is
the same. The immunity afforded is to be absolutely free from suit for statements made while in a
judicial proceeding.
3
See, e.g., Kidd vs. Superior Nursing Care, Inc., 2008 WL 2945960, at *2 (D.N.J. 2008) (“A
statement made in the course of judicial, administrative, or legislative proceedings is absolutely
privileged and wholly immune from liability.”) (citation omitted); Schultea vs. City of Patton Vill.,
2006 WL 3063457, at *3 (S.D. Tex. October 27, 2006) (“Statements made in the due course of a
quasi-judicial proceeding cannot serve as the basis of a civil action for defamation regardless of
the negligence or malice with which they were made.”) (quotation marks and citation omitted).
4
Mahoney & Hagberg vs. Newgard, 712 N.W.2d 215, 219 (Minn. Ct. App. 2006) (“Even if the
claim is not for defamation, if it sounds in defamation, absolute immunity applies. The judicial
immunity rule is not to be ‘scuttled’ by pleadings which allege that the wrongful acts resulted
from a conspiracy rather than from defamation”) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
The Mahoney & Hagberg court noted that most often, the defense of absolute immunity arises in
the context of a defamation claim. Id. (“Respondent claims that judicial immunity applies only
to defamation claims. Traditionally, judicial immunity has applied to protect participants in the
judicial process against claims of defamation. [D]efamatory matter published in the due course of
a judicial proceeding is absolutely privileged and will not support a civil action for defamation.
In Minnesota, nearly all assertions of judicial immunity involve underlying claims for defama-
tion”) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted) (citing Prosser & Keaton on Torts § 113, at
816–17 (5th ed. 1984)).
5
Asset Mgmt. Sys. Inc. vs. White, Zuckerman, Warsavsky & Luna, 2002 WL 72925, at *8-9 (Cal.
Ct. App. April 20, 2002) (dismissing all of the causes of action on the basis of immunity, including
the causes of action for abuse of process and unfair business practice).
6
Soliz vs. Williams, 74 Cal. App. 4th 577, 589 (1999) (involving a claim for defamation against
a judge who, in the hallway of the courthouse, told plaintiffs in one of his cases that their settle-
ment demand was “bullshit” and that they had “shit for brains”). The Soliz court also noted that
immunity is not “overcome by allegations of bad faith or malice.” Id. at 592. In comparison, if
the privilege were only qualified (i.e., not absolute), then the privilege may be defeated by such a
showing of malice or even recklessness.
240 K. M. Blankley
it could be a written communication, such as a brief or a pleading.7 Whether the

speaker intends to commit harm and the amount of resulting harm is immaterial
under an immunity inquiry. Provided that the statements fit within the common law
immunity exemption, the immunity is, as its name suggests, “absolute.”
Keep in mind, however, that not all statements made in a judicial proceeding
are per se immune. The speaker must have made the statement as part of a judicial
proceeding, and it must be pertinent or material to the redress or relief sought for
the statements to be covered by an absolute privilege.8 Off-handed and immaterial
comments are not covered by the privilege. Therefore, judicial participants cannot
institute lawsuits and use the protection of judicial privilege just to defame others
and cause harm.9 This chapter does not examine the contours of the test for abso-
lute privilege, but it does examine the underlying policies to demonstrate why the
privilege has been applied—and should continue to apply—to the arbitral forum.
Several important policies underlie this common law theory. In particular, those
policies include the ability for courts to obtain and weigh evidence, the ability for
judicial participants to speak in proceedings without fear of redress by the oppo-
nent, and as a curb for endless satellite litigation. These next sections discuss those
policy reasons.
Immunity Encourages Candor and Promotes the Tribunal’s

Truth-Seeking Function
Traditional litigation relies on an impartial, public third-party tribunal to decide cas-

es brought before the tribunal. The third-party neutral, i.e., the judge, must render a
decision based on the evidence presented. The judge is asked to consider conflicting
evidence and testimony in order to determine the truth and the applicable rights and
responsibilities among the parties before the court. Presumably, the more evidence
the judge can consider, the more likely that the judge will come to the truth of the
matter. Stated another way, potential repercussion for those who submit evidence or
arguments to a court does not support the court’s truth-seeking objectives.
7
Gallegos vs. Escalon, 993 S.W.2d 422, 424 (Tex. Ct. App. 1999) (“All communications, oral or
written, made in the due course of a judicial proceeding are absolutely privileged.”).
8
Harmon vs. Bennett, 103 Wash. App. 1045 (2000) (“Allegedly libelous statements, spoken or
written by a party or counsel in the course of a judicial proceeding, are absolutely privileged if they
are pertinent or material to the redress or relief sought, whether or not the statements are legally
sufficient to obtain that relief.”) (citing McNeal vs. Allen, 621 P.2d 1285 (Wash. 1980)).
Note that if the statement made is not pertinent or material to the redress or relief sought, then
the statement is not covered by the absolute privilege and the speaker may be liable for a cause
of action in defamation. See Post vs. Mendel, 507 A.2d 351, 356 (Pa. 1986) (holding that a letter
sent by an attorney was not privilege because it was not relevant to the redress or relief sought by
the client).
9
Of course, other remedies exist if a person files a frivolous lawsuit, such as sanctions under the
federal Civil Rule 11 (or state rule) or common law claims for frivolous conduct.
Absolute immunity serves this truth-seeking function of the courts. Absolute im-
munity “is intended to protect the integrity of the process itself and to insure that the
decision-making body gets the information it needs, whether the speaker deserves
the privilege or not.”10 In other words, the common law values the information re-
ceived and deliberated upon by courts over the right to sue the speaker in civil court
for potential wrongs occurring during the judicial process.11 To serve this end, the
absolute immunity applies to both parties and witnesses. Witnesses have even less
at stake in litigation than parties and should not be deterred from giving testimony
and other evidence in court.12 In fact, some states recognize a distinct privilege for
statements made by witnesses because “witness immunity fosters the truth-finding
function within the context of the adversarial process.”13
Because of the emphasis on the truth-seeking function of the court, the court
system prefers to encourage people to give testimony and offer evidence. If people
were held civilly liable for damages occurring by the statements or actions of one
party or witness in a court case, then the law would have a chilling effect and dis-
courage people from setting forth all of the evidence a court may need in order to
do its job of determining the truth and promoting justice. Judicial (or absolute)
immunity, then, helps encourage people to put evidence before the court, even if
the consequence of the immunity is that some individuals may be harmed—in fact,
they may suffer extensive damages—based on something said or presented to the
tribunal. This is the trade-off associated with judicial immunity—that a court will
have the information it needs, even if some amount of damage may be done to the
citizenry at large.
Critics might wonder why the court should encourage and protect the admission
of all evidence—including evidence that is blatantly false and spoken with intent
to deceive (or at least spoken recklessly). Granting immunity for one action neces-
sarily involves a balancing act and allows some individuals to suffer harm. Here,
the policies for immunity—including the court’s truth-seeking mission—outweigh
the potential for the court’s receipt of knowingly false testimony. Without such a
grant of immunity, participants may be less likely to present evidence in court or
even bring claims—both of which are discussed below. A frightened public does
not advance courts’ need for receiving evidence, and the courts could not determine
the rights of individuals without parties and attorneys bringing evidence before the
tribunals. If people are too hesitant to bring evidence, the courts will lose truthful
evidence from those veracious witnesses otherwise too scared to testify. This need
for evidence, then, outweighs the possibility that someone would lie and the result-
10
Id. at 424 (citing Reagan vs. Guardian Life Ins. Co., 166 S.W.2d 909 (Tex. 1942)).
11
Id. at 912 (“Stated in another way, where there is an absolute privilege, no action in damages
for language, oral or written, will lie; and this is true even though the language is false and uttered
or published with express malice…. The falsity of the statement or the malice of the utterer is im-
material, and the rule of nonliability prevails even though the statement was not relevant, pertinent
and material to the issues involved in the case.”).
12
Gallegos, 933 S.W.2d at 425 (noting that the “administration of justice” is best served if wit-
nesses “are not deterred by fear of lawsuits”).
13
Blevins vs. Hudson & Keyse, Inc., 395 F. Supp. 2d 662, 667 (S.D. Ohio 2004).
242 K. M. Blankley
ing harm thereof. Undoubtedly, some untruthful testimony will enter into the courts,
but this detriment will be outweighed by the additional truthful information that
witnesses will divulge when they feel comfortable enough to testify.
Although a wronged party cannot seek civil redress against the speaker of such a
defamatory statement, the wronged party still has the option to pursue criminal rem-
edies against the declarant. In other words, although immunity exists, that does not
mean that a declarant is allowed to lie. In fact, the criminal law serves as an ethical
back-stop to ensure that the court hears only truthful (or at least perceived truthful)
testimony, submissions, and briefs. This criminal law ensures a just process.
Immunity Encourages Wronged Parties to Seek Redress
As noted just above, judicial privilege encourages parties to bring lawsuits to seek
redress for apparent wrongs without the fear of being sued for bringing such action.
Whereas the previous justification focused on the court’s need for evidence, this
justification focuses on parties—particularly plaintiffs.14 One of the purposes of
the absolute privilege is to allow parties to “speak truly…without fear of personal
liability or an expensive lawsuit.”15 In other words, the absolute privilege helps
14
This rationale applies equally to defendants filing cross-claims and counterclaims.
15
Dan B. Dobbs, The Law of Torts § 412 (2001); see also Paul T. Hayden, Reconsidering the Liti-
gator’s Absolute Privilege to Defame, 54 Ohio St. L.J. 985, 1027 (1993) (“We should recognize, in
other words, that the absolute privilege, much like constitutional protections for speech, provides
“breathing room” allowing for speech without fear.”); Harvey vs. Montgomery Cty., Tex., 2012
WL 12530, at *6 (S.D. Tex. January 3, 2012) (“Policy interests justifying immunity include the
fact that the fear of suit may cause the prosecutor to shade his decisions instead of exercising the
independence of judgment required by his public trust.”); Ims vs. Town of Portsmouth, 32 A.3d
914, 928 (R.I. 2011) (“The doctrine of absolute privilege exists because it is more important that
witnesses be free from the fear of civil liability for what they say than that a person who has been
defamed by their testimony have a remedy.”) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted);
Simms vs. Seaman, 23 A.3d 1, 13 (Conn. App. Ct. 2011) (“While no civil remedies can guard
against lies, the oath and the fear of being charged with perjury are adequate to warrant an abso-
lute privilege for a witness’ statements.”) (citation omitted); Viviano vs. CBS, Inc., 597 A.2d 543,
549 (N.J. Super. Ct. 1991) (“An absolute privilege for words spoken in the course of a judicial
proceeding was thought necessary to promote testimonial candor by shielding witnesses from fear
of subsequent civil suits; criminal penalties were deemed sufficient sanctions against perjury.”);
In re Raspanti, 8 So. 3d 526, 533–34 (La. 2009) (“Louisiana jurisprudence has consistently held
that communications made in judicial or quasi-judicial proceedings carry an absolute privilege so
that witnesses, bound by their oaths to tell the truth, may speak freely without fear of civil suits for
damages.”); Hopkins vs. O’Connor, 925 A.2d 1030, 1042 (Conn. 2007) (“Participants in a judicial
process must be able to testify or otherwise take part without being hampered by fear of defama-
tion suits.”); Mahoney & Hagberg, 712 N.W.2d at 219 (“The absolute immunity of witnesses and
parties from claims for damages arising out of their trial testimony is premised on public policy
concerns that favor “ascertainment of truth” over self-censorship that may result from witnesses’
“fear of subsequent liability.””); Sinrod vs. Stone, 2004 WL 60396596, at *2 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. March
30, 2004) (“The public interest in maintaining high standards among members of the bar, and the
necessity that persons be given a forum in which to lodge complaints without fear of being sued
for libel, warrants that absolute privilege be maintained, even at the risk that some attorneys will
protect freedom of speech and allows parties the freedom to seek redress for wrongs
without fear of being sued for the mere act of filing a lawsuit.16 As noted above,
the inquiry involves a careful balancing of interests—here the right to speak freely
in the course of judicial proceedings compared to the harm of defaming another
person, causing damages.17
The litigation privilege protects not only litigation parties but also litigation ad-
vocates. As the Ohio Supreme Court held: “While the imposition of an absolute
privilege in judicial proceedings may prevent redress of particular scurrilous and
defamatory allegations that tend to harm the reputation of the person defamed, a
contrary rule, in our view, would unduly stifle attorneys from zealously advancing
the interests of their clients in possible violation” of the ethical codes governing
attorneys.18 Advocates also need a wide flexibility to use strategy to determine the
best way of attempting to secure justice for individual clients.19 The fear of reper-
cussion—either in the form of disciplinary action or a defamation lawsuit—by other
parties in litigation would have a chilling effect on the practice of law entirely. Ra-
tional actors would not enter the practice of law if they would be open to suit in ev-
ery losing venture, and attorneys would not be able to afford malpractice insurance
because of the significant increase of exposure. In these ways, absolute immunity
protects not only judicial participants but also those who work to advocate on their
behalf.
Thus, the judicial privilege protects all litigation participants to seek redress for
wrongs and to defend themselves in litigation activities without fear of facing suit
for damages in a defamation action. Without this rule, the losing party in every
be falsely or maliciously accused of wrongdoing.”); Boyd vs. Bressler, 18 F. App’x 360, 365 (6th
Cir. 2001) (“In determining whether the writings or statements are reasonably related to the matter
of inquiry, Ohio courts construe the absolute privilege with great liberality to assure that parties
or their attorneys are not deterred from prosecuting an action vigorously for fear of personal li-
ability.”).
16
The First Amendment of the Constitution preserves “the right of the people peaceably to as-
semble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” US Const. Am. 1.
17
Business Defamation and Disparagement, 19 No. 5 Bus. Tort Rep. 134, 140 (March 2007) (“Ju-
dicial proceedings have been held an appropriate setting for application of an absolute privilege.
As a matter of public policy, the possible harm caused persons unable to recover for defamatory
statements made in connection with judicial proceedings is deemed to be outweighed by the need
to encourage parties and other participants in litigation to speak freely in the course of the proceed-
ings. It has thus been held that a statement made in the course of legal proceedings is absolutely
privileged if it is at all pertinent to the litigation. The privilege applies to all parties involved *141
in such proceedings, i.e., judges, jurors, counsel, witnesses, and the parties.”).
18
Surace vs. Wuliger, 25 Ohio St. 3d 229, 235 (1986).
19
Monica R. Nuckolls, Torts, 54 Wayne L. Rev. 439, 465 (2008) (noting that absolute privilege
exists to promote the public policy of securing to attorneys as officers of the court the upmost
freedom in their efforts to secure justice for their clients) (citations and quotation marks omitted).
Ronald S. Canter & Manuel H. Newburger, Common Law Immunity for Litigation Activities Under
the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 61 Consumer Fin. L. Q. 29, 39 (Spring 2007) (discussing
the importance of attorneys exercising “sound legal perspective” as part of their duty as officers
of the court and needing immunity from attempting to help clients achieve representation for their
colorable legal claims).
244 K. M. Blankley
disputed suit—and that party’s attorney—could face a colorable claim of defama-

tion. Winning plaintiffs could sue losing defendants who mounted a vigorous de-
fense or asserted counterclaims on the basis of defamation. Winning defendants
could sue plaintiffs for the mere act of bringing their complaints. Sound policy
dictates that the courts should be open to redress grievances without fear of reper-
cussion simply for engaging in litigation activity, even if the ultimate result is that
some parties suffer serious damages and consequences as a result of wrong and
hateful accusations levied.
Stated another way, lawsuits for defamation are too strong of a disincentive for
lying—especially at the fringes. If defamation lawsuits were available for every
litigant, then no one would want to testify in court. Those witnesses who second-
guess their own stories will not want to testify out of fear of losing a large judgment
in a post-lawsuit defamation action. The court would, in effect, lose a lot of truthful
information by making defamation lawsuits available. Thus, the balance of interests
weighs in favor of making perjury solely a criminal law, and not also a civil tort.
Immunity Prevents Endless Satellite Litigation
Building on the above, judicial or absolute immunity also serves the court system
by preventing endless satellite litigation. Without the judicial privilege, victors in
litigation would have colorable causes of action for defamation against opposing
parties, witnesses, experts, and their attorneys. Each lawsuit could lead to another
handful of lawsuits, which would have the potential to multiply exponentially even
after just a handful of litigated cases.
Courts simply do not have the capacity to deal with such lawsuits. Without a
litigation privilege, the courts would be clogged with “a multitude of lawsuits based
upon alleged defamatory statements made in other judicial proceedings.”20 The liti-
gation privilege, thus, prevents a “proliferation of lawsuits” stemming from the fil-
ing of one, single lawsuit.21 A system without such a privilege would feel like the
next generation of Bleak House22 with generations upon generations of disputants
creating new and endless disputes based on a single transaction from decades prior.
20
Surace, 25 Ohio St. 3d at 235.
21
Lambert vs. Carneghi, 158 Cal. App. 4th 1120, 1138 (2008) (quoting Mattco Forge, Inc. vs.
Arthur Young & Co., 5 Cal. App. 4th 392, 402 (1992)). The Lambert case involved the application
of immunity for a party-appointed expert witness in an arbitration. The California court did not
extend the absolute privilege to those expert witnesses hired by the party to provide testimony in
an arbitration (or litigation, for that matter).
22
Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1852). The Dickens novel involves the lawsuit of Jarndyce vs.
Jarndyce, a complex probate case dealing with the inheritance of a large estate. The lawsuit, how-
ever, drags on over the course of several generations, and ultimately, the legal fees associated with
litigating a case for so many years deplete the estate.
The mathematical possibilities for the creation of new lawsuits and the stresses on
the current system would be nothing less than mind-numbing.
The court system is intended to be a system that resolves disputes with final
judgments.23 Although many scholars criticize the American system of justice as a
lengthy and costly process,24 the process largely results in finality, even if that final-
ity results, in some cases, only after many years and many appeals. In this way, the
absolute privilege serves to “promote finality of judgments by discouraging endless
collateral litigation.”25 Without finality, disputes cannot be resolved, and conflict
among parties will likely escalate, perhaps causing multigenerational rifts between
(or worse among) families.26
A system of endless litigation would inevitably lead to inconsistent results. In-
consistent results are bad both for the litigants and for the judicial system. For the
litigants, multiple lawsuits could leave parties with inconsistent obligations, offset-
ting judgments, and confusing standards—all of which could be compounded by
the passage of time as endless lawsuits drag on and on. In addition, inconsistent
judgments across jurisdictions or within a jurisdiction are harmful for society as
a whole. In a common law system that relies upon the principle of stare decisis,27
consistency with past precedent is of the utmost importance. Having a multitude of
23
In fact, at the termination of every lawsuit is a decree known as a “final judgment.” See, e.g.,
Fed. R. Civ. P. 58. As a general matter, only “final judgments” can be appealed. 28 U.S.C. § 1291
(2006).
24
See, e.g., Jacob Macfarlane, Note, How Many Cooks Does It Take To Spoil A Soup? San Juan
County vs. U.S. and Interventions In R.S. 2477 Land Disputes, 29 J. Land Res. & Environ. L 227,
244 (2009) (“Over the past few decades, a consensus has emerged that traditional litigation is an
inefficient way to resolve disputes. Litigation is costly, drawn-out, adversarial, and fails to produce
long-term solutions to problems.”); Ossie Ravid & William Hayes Weissman, Cash Management
Activities and the Sales Factor: When is Gross Really Gross and a Receipt Really a Receipt?, 10
St. & Local Tax Law. 93, 146 (2005) (“Thus, litigation is an inefficient and expensive way to re-
solve these issues.”); Norman I. Silber, Commercial Litigators Reveal All: Exploring Commercial
Litigation in New York State Courts, 25 Hofstra L. Rev. 235, 246 (1996) (“It is no wonder that liti-
gation looks inefficient and unpredictable to outsiders: the profession’s own guidebook describes
it this way to insiders.”).
25
Lambert, 158 Cal. App. 4th at 1143 (discussing finality).
26
Scholar John Lande has written extensively on dispute resolution design and how design can de-
escalate conflict, compared to the escalation of conflict that often occurs in traditional litigation.
See John Lande, The Revolution in Family Law Dispute Resolution, 24 J. Am. Acad. Mat. Law.
441, 445 (2012) (noting that many families do not like resorting to the litigation system because
litigation has the potential to escalate conflict in the name of dispute resolution); John Lande, The
Movement Toward Early Case Handling in Courts and Private Dispute Resolution, 24 Ohio St. J.
on Disp. Resol. 81, 82 (2008) (“Being in a dispute in an adversarial disputing culture is enough to
bring out the brute in many people. Even though many parties and lawyers are not generally nasty,
they may act that way in response to their perception of nastiness by the other side. This can lead
to a cycle of escalating conflict, which prolongs the agony.”).
27
Stare decisis is a system in which judges respect and act consistently with earlier precedents.
The term stems from the Latin maxim: “Stare decisis et non quieta movere,” meaning “to stand by
decisions and not disturb the undisturbed.”
246 K. M. Blankley
lawsuits creates increased opportunity for inconsistent results and makes the system
unpredictable. An unpredictable legal system imposes increased costs on litigants—
particularly relating to the costs associated with the inability of parties and their
legal counsel to assess the risks of litigation.28
For all of these reasons, the application of judicial immunity to litigation par-
ties makes perfect sense. Judicial immunity rightly extends to litigation parties,
witnesses, judges, and attorneys.29 Judicial immunity serves the court system by
preserving the judicial inquiry for the truth and preventing satellite litigation from
clogging the courts’ already busy dockets. Judicial immunity serves witnesses by al-
lowing them to feel free to testify truthfully without any civil recourse by the parties
against whom they are testifying. The doctrine serves attorneys by allowing them
to represent clients zealously and without fear of facing civil litigation by opposing
parties. And judicial immunity protects parties’ abilities to seek redress for civil
wrongs without fear and preserves the finality that accompanies a final judgment
or settlement.30
The Policies Underlying Judicial Immunity Apply Equally—If Not

More So—to Arbitration
The policies mentioned above apply equally, if not more so, to arbitration. Arbitra-
tors, like judges, need to seek the truth of situations to best achieve justice. Witness-
es and parties benefit from the ability to speak freely. Attorneys can work within the
bounds of the ethical guidelines without fear of disciplinary action. All arbitration
participants benefit from the prevention of endless satellite litigation—as does the
traditional court system.31
28
See, e.g., Kathleen R. Guzman, Intents and Purposes, 60 U. Kan. L. Rev. 305, 307 (2011)
(“Unpredictable outcomes encourage inefficient litigation and impose unnecessary economic and
human costs on parties to it.”).
29
As noted supra note 28, the litigation privilege should not extend so far as to apply to a party’s
own hired attorneys or expert witnesses. Judicial immunity does not serve as a bar to attorney
malpractice suits or to suits against the expert witnesses hired by the parties. These situations are
markedly different than the situation involving an opponent or neutral who utters words thought
to be defamatory.
30
Of course, under some circumstances, litigants may be liable for sanctions based on litigation
conduct. Attorneys who violate Civil Rule 11 can be sanctioned. Statutes exist allowing recovery
for the filing of frivolous or vexatious litigation. Thus, the concept of judicial immunity is not
absolute, and these are a few of the exceptions to judicial immunity, other than perjury, which is
discussed elsewhere in this chapter.
31
Because arbitration is a creature of contract, only those parties and those disputes governed by
the arbitration agreement would actually be subject to the use of the arbitral forum to resolve the
dispute. See, e.g., 9 U.S.C. § 2 (2002). Claims of defamation against arbitrators, witnesses, and
opposing counsel would likely all fall outside of the contract between the arbitration claimants and
respondents (the arbitration equivalent of plaintiffs and defendants). Claims of defamation against
Because these policies benefit the arbitration participants in the same manner
as litigation participants discussed above, this chapter does not address these
again in the context of arbitration. Instead, this section discusses some reasons
why justice in arbitration is served to an even greater degree by the absolute
privilege. First, this section discusses how the benefit of finality in the context
of alternative dispute resolution serves the participants’ interest. Second, this
section discusses how the truth-seeking function of the arbitrator may be par-
ticularly heightened given the limited discovery available during the arbitration
process.
Absolute Immunity Serves Arbitration Participants’

Interest in Finality
Arbitration, and indeed most forms of alternative dispute resolution, seek to give
participants a final resolution to their conflict.32 Some of arbitration’s hallmarks
include confidentiality,33 efficiencies in both time and money,34 informality in
an arbitral opponent may or may not fall within the arbitration agreement. If the disputes fall out-
side of existing arbitration agreements and the parties do not choose to arbitrate the new dispute,
these cases will be heard in court. In other words, the proliferation of potential claims would most
likely be claims in litigation and not claims in arbitration.
32
Different forms of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) achieve finality in different ways. Me-
diation and negotiation seek to end conflict through the use of a binding, contractual settlement.
Such a settlement becomes an enforceable contract and ends the litigation process (if the parties
had already instituted litigation). Arbitration, by contrast, seeks finality through a streamlined ad-
judicatory procedure with limited ability to appeal.
33
Arbitration is a private, i.e., nonpublic, process, but it is not necessarily confidential. See Bert
K. Robinson, Arbitration: The Quest for Confidentiality, 58 La. B.J. 180, 181 (October/November
2010) (“Absent statute or contract, there is no confidentiality attaching to arbitration…. Feelings
of confidentiality are perhaps created by the fact that arbitrations are, by their very nature, private
and not public.”). Of course, parties interested in confidentiality can simply include a confidenti-
ality provision in their agreement to arbitrate or even to execute a separate confidentiality agree-
ment. Arbitral demands, filings, and hearings are not part of the public record.
34
Parties can streamline the arbitral process in order to resolve problems with less discovery,
less motions, shorter hearings, and less delay than compared to traditional court processes. See
Folkways Music Publ’sh’rs, Inc. v. Weiss, 989 F.2d 108, 111 (2d Cir. 1993) (“Arbitration awards
are subject to very limited review in order to avoid undermining the twin goals of arbitration,
namely, settling disputes efficiently and avoiding long and expensive litigation.”). The commer-
cial rules for the American Arbitration offer a prime example of the types of procedures often
employed in arbitration, specifically the treatment of discovery issues in arbitration. See American
Arbitration Association, Commercial Arbitration Rules and Mediation R-21, at http://www.adr.
org/sp.asp?id=22440. Because the parties have the freedom to design the arbitral process, parties
could always contract for more or less discovery, hearings, motions, etc., if in the best interests of
the parties.
248 K. M. Blankley
procedure,35 finality in the resulting award,36 and the possibility for the parties to
continue their relationships with each other (working, professional, or otherwise)
after the arbitrator resolves the dispute.37 These benefits flow from arbitration’s
large independence from the traditional legal system in the USA,38 which is presum-
ably a reason why parties choose to be in arbitration in the first place.39
Parties choose arbitration, at least in part, because of the promise of finality that
the process brings. Arbitration brings finality primarily because of the limited scope
of judicial review available for arbitration awards.40 Under the FAA, arbitration
awards can only be vacated (i.e., overturned) if the party seeking review can show
one of the following limited circumstances:
(1) where the award was procured by corruption, fraud, or undue means; (2) where there
was evident partiality or corruption in the arbitrators, or either of them; (3) where the arbi-
trators were guilty of misconduct in refusing to postpone the hearing, upon sufficient cause
shown, or in refusing to hear evidence pertinent and material to the controversy or any
other misbehavior by which the rights of any party have been prejudiced; or (4) where the
arbitrators exceeded their powers, or so imperfectly executed them that a mutual, final, and
definite award upon the subject matter submitted was not made.41
35
Arbitration has flexible and informal procedures compared to traditional, American litigation.
Arbitral hearings often occur in conference rooms, not court houses. Hearings occurring over
multiple days may not occur consecutively if spreading out the hearing process over time is ad-
vantageous to one or more of the parties (or the arbitrator, for that matter). Arbitrators also have
greater involvement in the merits’ presentation compared to judges, often engaging in questioning
of witnesses and asking additional information of attorneys.
36
As noted above, the ability to review an arbitration award is quite limited. The primary purpose
for the limited review is to ensure finality of the arbitration award. Because review is limited, the
parties to arbitration have little incentive to challenge an arbitration award, thus ending the process
before spending additional time and money in the appeals process.
37
This benefit of continuing a relationship between the parties will depend on the nature of the
relationship of the parties at the onset. If, for example, the parties are a primary contractor and
a subcontractor working on a project under a short deadline, then the ability to resolve disputes
quickly and get back to a working relationship maybe of the utmost importance. In fact, the con-
struction industry primarily uses arbitration to resolve disputes arising in a project. Construction
projects often involve parties that must work together to meet deadlines, and these parties must
continue to work with each other even after a dispute arises. If, on the other hand, the parties are
a consumer and a national cell-phone company, the ability to return to a lasting relationship may
not be important.
38
This paper is limited to a discussion of arbitrations occurring within the USA. International
arbitration involves a whole host of ethics issues not covered here.
39
Arbitration is a consensual process. If the parties do not agree to be in arbitration, then they
do not have to participate. Agreement to arbitrate, however, can take place before a dispute even
arises. In fact, most agreements to arbitrate are pre-dispute contracts to arbitrate. These arbitration
agreements occur in any number of contexts, including commercial (business) contracts, consumer
contracts with businesses for products or services, and employment contracts. For more informa-
tion regarding arbitration as a consensual process, see Kristen M. Blankley, Taming the Wild West
of Arbitration Ethics, 60 U. Kan. L. Rev. 925 (2012) (describing the disconnect between arbitration
and the court system and the consensual nature of the process).
40
Arbitration “awards” are the equivalent of a court judgment.
41
9 U.S.C. § 10 (a).
Even a cursory examination of the grounds for review demonstrates that Congress
intended on not prying into an arbitrator’s decision on its merits. These four grounds
deal with factors well outside the arbitral process. The first three of these grounds
for review consider whether outside influences, bias, or misconduct entered into
the hearing, thus resulting in an award not worth affirming. The final ground for
review examines whether the arbitrator even had the authority to rule in the manner
demonstrated by the award.
Not surprisingly, demonstrating that any of these circumstances exist is a dif-
ficult task for a party dissatisfied with an arbitration award. Because so few reasons
exist for vacating an arbitration award,42 the rate of vacating arbitration awards hov-
ers in the single digits.43 The limited grounds for review, coupled with an extremely
low reversal rate, demonstrate the finality that arbitration provides participants.
Arbitration awards often do not include a reasoned award, but only a determi-
nation of who wins, who loses, and the continuing obligations of the parties (i.e.,
monetary damages, an order to reinstate, etc.).44 Unreasoned awards are virtually
unreviewable, as the reviewing court has little to consider when determining if the
limited circumstances justifying review even apply.45 This arbitration custom or
42
Interestingly, when examining these grounds for review, none of them concern whether the arbi-
trator was right or wrong in deciding the case. See R. Wilson Freyermuth, Foreclosure by Arbitra-
tion?, 37 Pepp. L. Rev. 459, 474 (2010) (“By contrast, an arbitration award is, for the most part,
substantively unreviewable.”). In fact, arbitration awards will often not be vacated if the arbitrator
ruled incorrectly on the law or made a seemly erroneous factual determination. See Yondan Li, Ap-
plying the Doctrine of Unconscionability to Employment Arbitration Agreements, With Emphasis
on Class Action/Arbitration Waivers, 31 Whittier L. Rev. 665, 700 (2010) (“The FAA contains no
guidance on the subject of whether or how arbitrators’ findings of fact or conclusions of law can
be reviewed.”).
43
See Sarah R. Cole, Let the Grand Experiment Begin: Pyett Authorizes Arbitration of Unionized
Employees’ Statutory Discrimination Claim, 14 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 861, 880 (2010) (noting
that the rates of reversal of arbitration awards is actually similar to the reversal rates of lower
court decisions on appeal) (citing Christopher R. Drahozal, Is Arbitration Lawless?, 40 Loy. L.A.
L. Rev. 187, 214 (2006) (conducting study of arbitration awards)); See also Robert B. Hamilton,
When An Arbitration Ruling Must Be Overturned: The Commonwealth Court’s Proper Applica-
tion of the “Essence Test” in Slippery Rock vs. APSCUF, 17 Wid. L. J. 508 (2008) (noting that a
more searching review of arbitration awards could cause a higher rate of reversal, which would
make “a contractual arbitration provision almost meaningless” and simply a step to take prior to
litigation).
44
Currently, no research exists regarding the rate of reasoned awards compared to awards simply
determining a winning party and obligations owed. See Drahozal, Is Arbitration Lawless?, supra,
at 212 (“I know of no empirical evidence on the extent to which arbitration awards are reasoned or
what proportion of reasoned awards are published”).
45
See, e.g., Edward Brunet & Jennifer J. Johnson, Substantive Fairness in Securities Arbitration,
76 U. Cin. L. Rev. 459, 490 (2008) (noting that judicial review can be extraordinarily difficult
given the “paucity of reasoned awards”); Leanne Montgomery, Expanded Judicial Review of Com-
mercial Arb. Awards—Bargaining for the Best of Both Worlds: Lapine Tech. Corp vs. Kyocera
Corp., 130 F.3d 884 (9th Cir. 1997), 68 U. Cin. L. Rev. 553 (2000) (“Furthermore, there are
practical difficulties for a court reviewing an unreasoned or unwritten award which was arrived at
through different procedural rules than those employed by the courts.”); see also Univ. Commons-
250 K. M. Blankley
norm, then, also encourages the finality of arbitration by leaving the courts with
little to review following the issuance of the award.
Because the arbitration system already includes mechanisms to ensure the final-
ity of decisions and efficiency in resolving disputes, the policy of absolute immu-
nity is particularly well suited for this forum. All of these mechanisms for efficiency
and finality would be defeated if the parties could simply reopen cases by asserting
new defamation actions in court following an arbitration hearing. Thus, providing
immunity to the actions in the arbitral forum makes sense and serves these policies.
Arbitrators Hear Cases Based on a Less-Developed Factual

Record Than Judges, Which May Heighten the Truth-Finding
Requirements of Arbitrators
Civil trials often occur after the attorneys involved develop a large factual record.
Attorneys regularly engage in extensive discovery, especially if the case involves
high dollars in damages or important issues to be resolved. The discovery file typi-
cally involves deposition transcripts, written interrogatory questions and answers,
documents obtained as a result of document requests or subpoenas, and expert wit-
ness reports and depositions, among other types of factual and legal development.
When attorneys develop such a large file prior to trial, they are armed with informa-
tion to question witnesses on the stand, demonstrate contradictory statements, and
impeach questionably untruthful witnesses. Creating such a discovery file, how-
ever, can take years of pretrial time and be extraordinarily costly.46
In contrast, the arbitration process is intended to be significantly more stream-
lined and efficient. One of arbitration’s biggest efficiencies (aside from the lim-
ited review discussed above) is the ability to scale down significantly the amount
of pre-hearing discovery. Failing to take advantage of these cost- and time-saving
opportunities “runs counter to the purposes for which arbitration was originally
conceived—as a swift and efficient alternative dispute resolution process.”47 With-
out wasting clients’ valuable time and money on discovery and motion practice,
cases can be brought before arbitrators swiftly, and the parties can receive an award
quickly that likely will not be overturned (or even challenged) in court.
Urbana, Ltd. vs. Universal Constructors Inc., 304 F.3d 1331, 1337 (11th Cir. 2002) (stating that
when arbitration awards are unreasoned, courts have a nearly impossible task on judicial review).
46
By and large, discovery is the most costly portion of a civil case. Even the US Supreme Court
noted the expense of discovery in the 2007 case Bell Atl. Corp. vs. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 558
(2007). The Twombly Court heightened the pleading requirements for plaintiffs such that only
“plausible” cases can survive a motion to dismiss and move into the realm of discovery practice.
Motion practice in civil litigation is also costly and timely. Arbitration largely does not have the
same motion practice (if at all) as seen in civil litigation, so the parties in arbitration can save sub-
stantial time and money bypassing that stage of the process.
47
Edna Sussman & Victoria A. Kummer, Drafting the Arbitration Clause: A Primer on the Oppor-
tunities and the Pitfalls, 67-Apr. Disp. Resol. J. 30, 35 (February–April 2012); See also Judy Rost
et al., Cmoparative International Perspective of Arbitration in the Franchising Context, 31-NTR
Franchise L.J. 124, 127 (Winter 2012) (noting that discovery can be expensive in US litigation and
that the arbitration procedure is intended to cut down on much of that cost).
If little discovery occurs prior to the arbitration hearing, then the arbitrator must
be ready to take an active role in the truth-seeking process. When parties testify at
an arbitration who have never been deposed, there exists no previous sworn state-
ment against which the neutral can determine if the witness is testifying consistent-
ly.48 Similarly, if document discovery prior to the hearing is not robust, then the
arbitrator might need to rely on testimonial evidence to a greater degree than judges
in court.
In practice, many arbitrators are aware of their role as truth-seekers in a dispute
with limited discovery. Arbitrators are often keenly aware of the discovery schedule
and the relatively short amounts of time needed for these cases to reach a hearing.
Arbitrators tend to consider all evidence—even evidence that judges would find
objectionable—in order to determine the best resolution for the situation.49 Unlike
most judges, arbitrators are active participants in the evidence-gathering process.
Arbitrators routinely ask questions of the witnesses and lawyers if the presentation
of evidence still leaves the decision-makers with questions.
Given this great truth-seeking function of arbitrators, absolute immunity serves
an important purpose in the arbitration process. The protection of absolute privilege
should encourage witnesses to speak without fear of reprisal, thus giving the arbitra-
tors greater information upon which to make their rulings. In this way, the search
for truth might be even greater in the arbitral forum with a less robust discovery file
upon which to double-check the veracity of witnesses and truthfulness in written
records. Given the fact that absolute immunity serves to encourage the truth-seeking
function of tribunals, this policy is particularly important in the arbitral forum.
Recognizing the Benefits of Judicial Immunity to Arbitration, Many

Jurisdictions Already Apply Immunity to the Arbitral Forum
Because the policies surrounding absolute immunity apply equally, if not more so,
to the arbitral forum, many courts have rightly begun to apply the privilege to defa-
mation and other tort claims arising out of conduct occurring in the arbitral forum.
This section discusses some recent cases applying arbitral immunity to the arbitral
context, focusing on the policy reasons for the decisions.
In 2007, the Florida Court of Appeals applied the doctrine of absolute immunity
to the actions of an arbitration party in Kidwell vs. General Motors Corp.50 That case
48
Cross-examination in court based on inconsistent statements is one of the most common court-
room techniques. The rules of evidence generally allow the use of previous sworn statements to
come in to evidence as showing the witness’s inconsistent testimony. Such use of prior statements
is simply not considered hearsay. See Fed. R. Evid. R. 801 (d 2011) (1).
49
In fact, if an arbitrator fails to admit certain evidence, under the FAA, an award is subject to
vacatur in court. 9 U.S.C. § 10 (a) (2006)
50
Kidwell vs. General Motors Corp., 975 So. 2d 503, 504 (2007) (Fl. Ct. App. 2007) (“[W]e agree
with the trial court that Nichols had immunity for his alleged wrongful actions because they oc-
curred during an arbitration proceeding”).
252 K. M. Blankley
involved a Better Business Bureau (BBB) arbitration concerning alleged damages re-
lating to the purchase of a Chevrolet pickup truck.51 Following the arbitration, Kidwell
instituted a lawsuit against General Motors (GM) claiming that the defendant’s em-
ployee lied under oath and committed other intentional misconduct preventing him
from recovering damages during the arbitration.52 Here, the court applied the doctrine
of judicial immunity because the arbitration forum provided Kidwell with all of the
protections that he would have had in court. Specifically, the court held that Kidwell
had “the opportunity to testify, present evidence, and cross-examine witnesses,” and
the ability to appeal the arbitrator’s decision to the Florida New Motor Vehicle Arbi-
trator Board.53 Because the alleged tortious statements and activity had some relation
to the proceeding, GM could successfully invoke the doctrine of absolute immunity.54
By focusing on the similarities of procedures afforded in the arbitral forum, the court
had little difficulty in extending immunity to the arbitral forum.55
The Bushell vs. Caterpillar56 employment case from the Illinois Court of Appeals
specifically applies the policies underlying the doctrine of immunity in dismissing a
post-arbitration defamation lawsuit. The basis for Bushell’s lawsuit was testimony
at his grievance arbitration hearing accusing Bushell of sleeping on the job and fal-
sifying employment records.57 The court recognized the competing policies at issue
51
9 U.S.C. § 10 (a).
52
Id. Kidwell complained that the GM employee denied him rights under Florida’s “Lemon Law,”
and that the law specifically requires arbitration as a prerequisite for anyone seeking to make a
claim in court under that law. See Fla. Stat. § 681.109 (2005).
53
Id. (citing Fla. Stat. § 681.109). The decision also notes that Kidwell failed to so appeal the
adverse award. Id. Additionally, the Florida Division of Consumer Services and the Department
of Agriculture and Consumer Services audits the BBB Auto Line Arbitration Program on a yearly
basis. 9 U.S.C. § 10(a).
54
Id. § 505.
55
The opinion does not state whether an appeal on these same grounds would have been successful.
For other cases involving arbitral immunity, see R., supra. Mahallati Dental Corp. vs. Adelman,
2011 WL 2811328, at *8 (“The litigation privilege protects witnesses from tort liability, with the
exception of malicious prosecution, for any communication made in judicial or quasi-judicial pro-
ceedings by litigants and other participants to achieve the objects of the litigation. Statements
made in the course of a private, contractual arbitration proceeding are protected by the litiga-
tion privilege”) (internal citations omitted); W. Mass. Blasting Corp. vs. Metro. & Cas. Ins. Co.,
783 A.2d 389, 403 (R.I. 2001) (“To the extent that these assertions against Western were published
in the context of an arbitration proceeding, we agree with those courts holding that such commu-
nications are privileged”); Dunn vs. Ladenburg Thalmann & Co., 686 N.Y.S.2d 471, 473 (App.
Div. March 1999) (“The challenged arbitration award operates to completely negate the compel-
ling public policy concerns underlying the privilege, i.e., the need to encourage the free and open
disclosure of information relevant to potential securities violations.”); Duke vs. Domtar, 2006 WL
2228830, at *8 (W.D. Ark. August 3 2006) (“To the extent Duke and Maxey allege witnesses’ testi-
mony given during their grievance and arbitration proceedings were defamatory, the law is crystal
clear that such testimony is absolutely privileged as well”); Blanchard vs. Lithia Rose-FT, Inc.,
2004, at 1WL 2331816, *1 (D. Ore. October 15, 2004) (“Such says nothing about confidentiality,
but refers to communications in the course of or incident to the qausi-judicial proceeding of the
arbitration. Such communications can have an absolute privilege attached to them under Oregon
law for claims such as defamation”).
56
Bushell vs. Caterpillar, 693 N.E.2d 1286 (1997) (Ill. Ct. App. 1997).
57
Id.
when deciding to apply the absolute immunity. Specifically, the court noted that the
ability to testify at an arbitration hearing free from fear “is acting in furtherance of
some interest of social importance, which is entitled to protection even at the ex-
pense of uncompensated harm to the plaintiff’s reputation.”58 In this case, the court
described the social interest as the “free and unhindered flow of information.”59
Thus, the defendant could rely on the “absolute immun[ity] from suit for communi-
cations made in plaintiff’s arbitration hearing.”60 Based on this analysis, the Illinois
court relied on the important policies discussed above—particularly the policy re-
garding witness freedom to testify in a manner without the fear of being sued and
the policy of preserving the free flow of information so that the arbiter can make the
best decision possible.
The Maryland case of Odyniec vs. Schneider61 also involves a court that specifi-
cally applied the policies promoting judicial immunity in deciding a case involving
the arbitral forum. The Odyniec plaintiffs, and respondent doctors in the underlying
arbitration, sued an opposing expert witness for defamation based on statements
made during a medical malpractice arbitration.62 At the arbitration hearing, the ex-
pert witness made pre-hearing statements that these doctors made false statements
and performed needless surgery with respect to the arbitration claimant.63 With re-
spect to the application of the privilege, the Maryland court recognized: “Because
the need for participants to speak freely during judicial proceedings is so essential
to the judicial process, the individual’s right to redress for defamation is necessarily
curtailed.”64 Similar to the Illinois case, the Maryland court determined that “social
58
Id.
59
683 N.E.2d at 1287. The court also relied on the Restatement (Second) of Torts for authority that
arbitral proceedings should be covered by absolute privilege. Id. at 1288 (citing Restatement (Sec-
ond) of Torts, 9 U.S.C. §§ 587, 588). The court found arbitration to constitute a “quasi-judicial”
tribunal under Illinois law. Id. at 1288 (“Under Illinois law, a tribunal is quasi-judicial when it
possesses powers and duties to (1) exercise judgment and discretion; (2) hear and determine or
ascertain facts and decide; (3) make binding orders and judgments; (4) affect the personal or prop-
erty rights of private persons; (5) examine witnesses, compel the attendance of witnesses, and hear
the litigation of issues on a hearing; and (6) enforce decisions or impose penalties”) (citing Adco
Servs., Inc. v. Bullard, 256 Ill. App. 3d 655 (1993)).
60
Id. at 1289.
61
Odyniec vs. Schneider, 588 A.2d 786 (Md. 1991).
62
Note that this case involved a lawsuit against the opponent’s expert witness, unlike the cases
discussed above involving a suit against one’s own hired witness (or attorney). As noted above, im-
munity should apply in cases involving opposing witnesses, including experts—but that immunity
should not extend to cases involving one’s own hired representatives and witnesses.
63
Id. at 787.
64
Id. at 790, 793 (“That Dr. Schneider’s defamatory statement may have been gratuitous, unso-
licited, and in part irrelevant to the purpose for which he was employed, and was not made during
the actual hearing before the arbitration panel, does not defeat the absolute privilege. Whatever
Dr. Schneider’s motivation may have been, he made his verbal statement to Ms. Ensor, a party in
the then-pending arbitration proceeding, while he was conducting a medical examination of her in
preparation for his participation in that proceeding. It was thus made in the course of his participa-
tion in that pending proceeding and therefore, without regard to its relevance, the verbal statement
is accorded the same absolute privilege as if it had been made by a witness during the arbitration
hearing itself”).
254 K. M. Blankley
benefit derived from free and candid participation by potential witnesses in the arbi-
tration process is essential to achieve the goal of a fair and just resolution of claims
of malpractice against health-care providers.”65 Again, the courts recognize the
benefits of immunity applied in the arbitration context. Here, the Maryland court
explicitly recognizes the witness’ need to speak freely and without fear of recourse,
as well as the arbitrator’s need to be able to resolve disputes based on being able to
consider all of the relevant evidence.
Thus, courts have already begun to recognize that the policies underlying the
doctrine of judicial immunity apply equally—if not more so—to the arbitral forum.
So far, however, none of these cases recognizes any repercussions for bad behavior
in arbitration. The next section considers this issue in more detail.
Dealing with Bad Behavior in Arbitration in The Midst

of Absolute Immunity
At this point, the law appears clear that no civil cause of action exists for defamation
or other torts based on bad behavior occurring in the arbitral forum. What happens,
then, when a party, witness, or attorney66 lies or otherwise wrongs another party or
witness in the arbitral forum? Take, for example, the situation involving Floyd Lan-
dis, 2006 winner of the Tour de France. Landis, a US cyclist, seemed to have fallen
behind the pack in Stage 16, only to make a miraculous comeback in Stage 17 of the
Tour and ultimately to win the competition.67 Thereafter, the International Cycling
Union determined that Landis took performance-enhancing drugs during the race,
in violation of the rules.68 Landis denied the allegations and challenged the finding
in an arbitration against the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) under the World
Anti-Doping Code.69 Landis engaged in a highly public arbitration taking place
65
Id.; see also Yeung vs. Maric, 232 P.3d 1281, 1285 (2010) (Ariz. App. Ct. 2010) (extending priv-
ilege to a physician witness in an arbitration, and stating: “These principles support a correspond-
ing immunity for witnesses who participate in arbitration proceedings. Arbitrators perform quasi-
judicial functions, and arbitration proceedings are quasi-judicial in nature. Witnesses in private,
contractual uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage arbitration proceedings should generally be
covered by the absolute privilege regarding defamatory statements, assuming the statements are
related to the proceeding and basic procedural safeguards… are present in the proceeding”).
66
Questions about arbitrator misconduct are not considered in this chapter. Unlike parties, arbitra-
tors must often abide by a code of ethics. The doctrine of absolute immunity, however, applies
equally to arbitrators as to other participants, provided that the arbitrators are acting in their official
capacity as arbitrators in the case.
67
See 2 Maureen Weston, Anatomy of the First Public International Sports Arbitration and the
Future of Public Arbitration After USADA vs. Floyd Landis, in Yearbook on Arbitration and Me-
diation, at 234–36 (Vandeplas Publishing 2010).
68
Id. at 235.
69
Id. at 236. At the time, the USADA had never lost a doping case to an athlete. Unlike standard
procedure, Landis requested that his hearings be public. Id. at 237. The USADA rules specifically
at Pepperdine University, during which he maintained his innocence, claiming he

never took any performance-enhancing drugs. Ultimately, the arbitrators ruled 2 − 1
that Landis had, in fact, taken performance-enhancing drugs and should be stripped
of his title as Tour de France winner. More than 2 years later, Landis admitted in an
interview with ESPN to using banned substances, detailing “extensive, consistent
use of the red blood cell booster erythropoietin (commonly known as EPO), testos-
terone, human growth hormone and frequent blood transfusions, along with female
hormones and a one-time experiment with insulin, during the years he rode for the
U.S. Postal Service and Switzerland-based Phonak teams.”70 To date, no serious
allegations have arisen that Landis committed perjury because he lied under oath in
an arbitral—but not litigation—forum.71
In traditional litigation, parties can appeal incorrect decisions and they can try to
convince prosecutors to institute perjury proceedings. These options, however, are
significantly more limited in arbitration. As will be discussed below, the availabil-
ity of judicial review—already limited in arbitration—is even more limited in the
context of claims of fraud occurring in the arbitration proceedings. As for criminal
liability, the laws simply do not extend to the arbitral forum. The juxtaposition of
arbitral immunity against the backdrop of the limited review and lack of criminal
consequences in arbitration creates the possibility of an arbitral ethical loophole.
A Survey of Criminal Laws Dealing with the Litigation

Process Shows That the Criminal Law Does Not Extend
to the Arbitral Process
Thus, the criminal law serves as the ethical “check” to prevent litigation participants
from committing wrongdoing and injustice in the arbitral forum. The criminal law
provides a deterrent for those who might otherwise lie, bribe, or destroy evidence.
The criminal law also provides an avenue for prosecuting wrongdoers who cannot
be held civilly liable for their misconduct. In other words, without the criminal
allow for such a public procedure. American Arbitration Association, Supplementary Procedures
for the Arbitration of Olympic Sport Doping Disputes Rule, American Arbitration Association,
Supplementary Procedures for the Arbitration of Olympic Sport Doping Disputes Rule 12 (May
1, 2009), available at www.ard.org/sp.asp?id=28627 (“The athlete….shall have the sole right to
request that the hearing be open to the public subject to such limitations as may be imposed by the
arbitrator(s)”).
70
Bonnie D. Ford, “Landis Admits Doping, Accuses Lance,” ESPN.com, May 21, 2010, available
at http://sports.espon.go.com/oly/cycling/news/story?id=5203604 (last visited June 15, 2011).
Even more recently, Lance Armstrong has now publically admitted his extensive use of perfor-
mance-enhancing drugs during his cycling career, forfeiting all of his Tour de France titles.
71
Admittedly, because Landis lost his arbitration, his case might not make the best test-case for
perjury within the arbitral forum. Whether a person convinces the decision-maker of the false
statements, however, should not be part of the calculus in determining whether perjury occurred.
256 K. M. Blankley
law, absolute immunity would shield the litigation process from repercussion from
wrongdoing. What, then about the arbitral forum?
As a general matter, most states have adopted a set of criminal laws based on
the chapter of the Model Penal Code (MPC) dealing with “Offenses Against Pub-
lic Administration” to criminalize offenses occurring before bodies such as courts
and legislatures and involving people such as police.72 Although most of this MPC
chapter is inapplicable to the realm of civil litigation,73 the sections dealing with
perjury and tampering could have some easy application to the arbitral forum. This
section shows how the perjury and tampering laws currently do not extend to the
arbitral forum, creating the arbitral “loophole” noted above.
Perjury Laws Generally Only Apply to “Official Proceedings,”

Which Do Not Include the Arbitral Forum
Although a lay person might expect that lying at an arbitration is illegal, the crimi-
nal laws surrounding lying in proceedings largely do not extend to the arbitral fo-
rum. But the laws criminalizing lying should apply to arbitration. After all, “[p]er-
jury strikes at the very heart of our system. When people lie in court, it undermines
the whole process. The problem is so bad that it is severely evaporating confidence
people have in the court system.”74 Lying in arbitration would have the exact same
outcome, undermining the arbitral process, and evaporating confidence in the arbi-
tration system.
A large number of states follow the MPC definition of “perjury,” which occurs
when a person who, in any “official proceeding,” makes a “false statement under
oath or equivalent affirmation, or swears or affirms the truth of a statement previ-
ously made, when the statement is material and [the speaker] does not believe it
to be true.”75 The Model Penal Code defines “official proceedings” as follows:
“[A] proceeding heard or which may be heard before any legislative, judicial,
administrative or other governmental agency or official authorized to take evi-
dence under oath, including any referee, hearing examiner, commissioner, no-
72
See Model Penal Code Articles §§ 240, 241, 242, 243 (1962).
73
For instance, the sections dealing with law enforcement, obstruction of justice, escape, bail
jumping, and abuse of office are not applicable to this discussion.
74
Mark Curriden, The Lies Have It, 81 A.B.A. J. 68, 69 (May 1995) (quoting former ABA Section
of Litigation chair David Weiner); see also John L. Watts, To Tell The Truth: A Qui Tam Action
for Perjury in a Civil Proceeding is Necessary to Protect the Integrity of the Civil Judicial System,
79 Temp. L. Rev. 773, 784 (2006) (“While this reluctance to criminally prosecute perjury in civil
cases may be understandable, it is regrettable because perjury undermines the real and perceived
legitimacy of the civil judicial system”).
75
Fla. Stat. § 241.1 (1972)(1).
tary or other person taking testimony or deposition in connection with any such
proceeding.”76 The terms “arbitration” and “arbitrator” are not found anywhere
in this definition.
The following states have adopted the MPC or similar definition: Alabama,77
Colorado,78 Connecticut,79 Florida,80 Hawaii,81 Illinois,82 Kansas,83 Kentucky,84
Maine,85 Missouri,86 Montana,87 Nebraska,88 New Hampshire,89 New Mexico,90
North Dakota,91 Ohio,92 Pennsylvania,93 Utah,94 and Washington.95 These statutes
are ambiguous, at best, as to whether they apply in arbitration. Although arbitration
is commonly considered a “proceeding” of sorts, whether it falls within the crimi-
nal law is quite unclear. Although some creative lawyers might make arguments
that the definition of “official proceedings” applies to the arbitral forum, the law
would be much improved by explicitly adding “arbitration” to the list of official
proceedings.
76
Id. § 240.0 (4).
77
Ala. Code § 13A-10-100, -101 (2010).
78
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-8-501, -502 (2010).
79
Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53a-146, -156 (2010).
80
Fla. Stat. Ann. § 837.02, -0.11 (2010).
81
Hawaii. Rev. Stat. § 710-1000, -1060 (2010).
82
720 I.L.C.S. 5/32-3 (a) (2010).
83
Kan. Stat. Ann. § 21-5903 (a)(1) (2010).
84
Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 523.010 (3), -.020 (2010).
85
17-A Maine Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 451 (1), 451 (5) (2010) (defining perjury). Maine also has a civil
cause of action for perjury—the only state to have such a statute. 14 Maine Rev. Stat. Ann. § 870
(2010). Whether this statute would apply to arbitration is also questionable.
86
Mo. Ann. Stat. § 492.040 (West 2010); Mo. Ann. Stat. § 575.010 (2010).
87
Mont. Code Ann. § 45-7-201 (2010).
88
Neb. Rev. Stat. § 29-915(1), -916 (2010).
89
N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 641:1 (I, II) (2010).
90
N.M. Stat. Ann. § 30-25-1; N.M. Stat. Ann. § 30-1-12 (G) (2010).
91
N.D. Cent. Code § 12.1-11-01 (2010) (defining perjury).
92
Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2921.01(D), -.11(A) (2010).
93
18 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 4902 (West 2010).
94
Utah Code Ann. § 76-8-501(1), -502 (2010).
95
Id. §§ 9A.72.010 (4)-.020 (2010). The Washington perjury laws, like some other state laws,
require that the oath taken be an oath mandated by law. Wash. Rev. Code Ann. § 9A.72.010 (3)
(defining “oath”). Because arbitration does not involve a statutory mandate to give testimony un-
der oath, these perjury statutes would not apply to arbitration.
258 K. M. Blankley
Another handful of states prohibit lying under oath more generally. These states in-
clude: Alaska,96 Arizona,97 Arkansas,98 California,99 Delaware,100 District of Columbia,101
96
Id. § 11.56.200 (2010) (“A person commits the crime of perjury if the person makes a false
sworn statement which the person does not believe to be true”); Alaska Stat. § 11.56.240 (2010)
(“defining “sworn statement” as statement knowingly given under oath or affirmation attesting to
the trust of what is stated, including a notarized statement”). These statues apply to arbitration pro-
ceedings. Gilbert vs. Sperbeck, 126 P.3d 1057, 1060 (Alaska 2005) (assuming, without deciding,
that perjury rules apply to arbitration proceedings).
97
683 N.E.2d at 1287. The court also relied on the Restatement (Second) of Torts for authority
that arbitral proceedings should be covered by absolute privilege. Id. at 1288 (citing Restatement
(Second) of Torts), 9 U.S.C. §§ 13-2702 (“A person commits perjury by making either: 1. A false
sworn statement in regard to a material issue, believing it to be false”); Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 13-2701
(LexisNexis 2010) (defining “sworn statement” as “any statement knowingly given under oath
or affirmation attesting to the truth of what is stated”). Arizona courts, similarly, applied perjury
laws to attorney fee arbitrations. State vs. Self, 135 Ariz. 374 (Ct. App. 1983) (holding that the
“sworn statement” language in the perjury statute facially applies to arbitration, and finding that
an arbitration hearing before the State Bar Committee constituted an “official proceeding” for the
tampering charges).
98
Ark. Code Ann. § 16-2-103 (2010) (“In all cases in which an oath is required or authorized by
law, it may be taken in any of the forms prescribed in this chapter. Every person swearing, af-
firming, or declaring in any such form, or any form authorized by law, shall be deemed to have
been lawfully sworn and to be guilty of perjury for corruptly and falsely swearing, affirming, or
declaring, in the same manner as if he or she had sworn by laying his or her hand on the Gospels
and kissing them”)
99
Cal. Penal Code § 118 (Deering 2010) (“Every person who, having taken an oath that he or she
will testify, declare, depose, or certify truly before any competent tribunal, officer, or person, in
any of the cases in which the oath may by law of the State of California be administered, willfully
and contrary to the oath, states as true any material matter which he or she knows to be false, and
every person who testifies, declares, deposes, or certifies under penalty of perjury in any of the
cases in which the testimony, declarations, depositions, or certification is permitted by law of the
State of California under penalty of perjury and willfully states as true any material matter which
he or she knows to be false, is guilty of perjury”).
100
Del. Stat. Tit. 11, 9 U.S.C. § 1221 (2010) (“A person is guilty of perjury in the first degree
when the person swears falsely and when the false statement consists of testimony and is material
to the action, proceeding or matter in which it is made”). Delaware, however, defines “testimony”
as “oral statement made under oath in a proceeding before any court, body, agency, public servant
or other person authorized to conduct the proceeding and to administer the oath or cause it to be
administered.” Id. (2010).
101
D.C. Code § 22-2402(a) (2010) (A person commits the offense of perjury if: (“(1) Having
taken an oath or affirmation before a competent tribunal, officer, or person, in a case in which
the law authorized such oath or affirmation to be administered, that he or she will testify,
declare, depose, or certify truly, or that any written testimony, declaration, deposition, or
certificate by that person subscribed is true, wilfully and contrary to an oath or affirmation
states or subscribes any material matter which he or she does not believe to be true and which
in fact is not true”).
Idaho,102 Indiana,103 Iowa,104 Maryland,105 Michigan,106

Minnesota, 107
Mississippi, 108
New York, 109
Oklahoma, 110
Oregon, 111
102
Idaho Code Ann. § 18-5401 (2010) (“Every person who, having taken an oath that he will testify,
declare, depose, or certify truly, before any competent tribunal, legislative committee, officer, or
person in any of the cases in which such an oath may by law be administered, willfully and contrary
to such oath, states as true any material matter which he knows to be false, is guilty of perjury”).
103
Ind. Code § 35-44-2-1 (a)(1) (2010) (“A person who makes a false, material statement under
oath or affirmation, knowing the statement to be false or not believing it to be true”).
104
Iowa Code Ann. § 720.2 (West 2010) (“A person who, while under oath or affirmation in any pro-
ceeding or other matter in which statements under oath or affirmation are required or authorized by
law, knowingly makes a false statement of material facts or who falsely denies knowledge of material
facts, commits a class “D” felony”). This statute applies to workman’s compensation arbitrations.
Continental Fire Sprinkler Co. vs. Hoolandt, 2002 WL 700977, at *2 (Iowa App. Ct. 2002).
105
Md. Crim. Code, 9 U.S.C. §§ 9-101(a) (“A person may not willfully and falsely make an oath
or affirmation as to a material fact: (1) if the false swearing is perjury at common law”).
106
Mich. Comp. Law Ann. § 750.423 (West 2010) (“Any person authorized by any statute of
this state to take an oath, or any person of whom an oath shall be required by law, who shall wil-
fully swear falsely, in regard to any matter or thing, respecting which such oath is authorized or
required, shall be guilty of perjury, a felony”).
107
Minn. Stat. Ann. § 609.48 (1) (West 2010) (“Whoever makes a false material statement not
believing it to be true in any of the following cases is guilty of perjury and may be sentenced as
provided in subdivision 4: (1) in or for an action, hearing or proceeding of any kind in which the
statement is required or authorized by law to be made under oath or affirmation”)
108
Miss. Code Ann. § 97-9-59 (2010) (“Every person who shall willfully and corruptly swear,
testify, or affirm falsely to any material matter under any oath, affirmation, or declaration legally
administered in any matter, cause, or proceeding pending in any court of law or equity, or before
any officer thereof, or in any case where an oath or affirmation is required by law or is necessary
for the prosecution or defense of any private right or for the ends of public justice, or in any matter
or proceeding before any tribunal or officer created by the Constitution or by law, or where any
oath may be lawfully required by any judicial, executive, or administrative officer, shall be guilty
of perjury, and shall not thereafter be received as a witness to be sworn in any matter or cause
whatever, until the judgment against him be reversed”).
109
N.Y. Penal Code § 210.15 (2010) (“A person is guilty of perjury in the first degree when he
swears falsely and when his false statement (a) consists of testimony, and (b) is material to the
action, proceeding or matter in which it is made”). This statute applies to National Association
of Securities Dealers (NASD) arbitrations. People vs. Cohen, 773 N.Y.S.2d 371, 385 (App. Div.
2004) (affirming perjury conviction).
110
21 Okla. St. Ann. § 491 (2010) (“Whoever, in a trial, hearing, investigation, deposition, certifi-
cation or declaration, in which the making or subscribing of a statement is required or authorized
by law, makes or subscribes a statement under oath, affirmation or other legally binding assertion
that the statement is true, when in fact the witness or declarant does not believe that the statement
is true or knows that it is not true or intends thereby to avoid or obstruct the ascertainment of the
truth, is guilty of perjury. It shall be a defense to the charge of perjury as defined in this section
that the statement is true”).
111
Ore. Rev. Stat. § 162. 065 (1) (2010) (“Whoever, in a trial, hearing, investigation, deposition,
certification or declaration, in which the making or subscribing of a statement is required or au-
thorized by law, makes or subscribes a statement under oath, affirmation or other legally binding
assertion that the statement is true, when in fact the witness or declarant does not believe that the
statement is true or knows that it is not true or intends thereby to avoid or obstruct the ascertain-
ment of the truth, is guilty of perjury. It shall be a defense to the charge of perjury as defined in this
section that the statement is true”).
260 K. M. Blankley
Rhode Island,112 South Carolina,113 South Dakota,114 Tennessee,115 Texas,116 and

Virginia.117 These varying definitions of criminal lying under oath appear to have
broader applicability to the arbitral forum.118 A clearer, more explicit definition,
however, would leave no question as to the laws’ applicability to the arbitral forum.
A small minority of states have perjury laws specifically referencing arbitra-
tion. In Wisconsin, a person commits perjury by making a false material statement
under oath before “[a]n administrative agency or arbitrator authorized by statute to
determine issues of fact.”119 This statute, however, likely does not apply to private,
contractual arbitrations because these arbitrations authorized by statutes fall in the
public sector, not the private sector. New Jersey law utilizes the MPC definition of
perjury,120 but the definition of “official proceeding” includes arbitration.121 Under
the circumstances noted in the statutes, perjury liability would apply to arbitral pro-
ceedings in these jurisdictions.
112
R.I. Gen. Laws § 11-33-1(a) (2010) (“Every person under oath or affirmation who knowingly
makes any false material declaration or makes or uses any other information, including any book,
paper, document, record, recording, or other material, knowing it contains any false material dec-
laration, shall be deemed guilty of perjury”).
113
S.C. Code Ann. § 16-9-30 (2010) (“It is unlawful for a person to willfully and knowingly swear
falsely in taking any oath required by law that is administered by a person directed or permitted by
law to administer such oath”).
114
S.D. Comp. L. § 22-29-1 (2010) (“Any person who, having taken an oath to testify, declare,
depose, or certify truly, before any competent tribunal, officer, or person, in any state or federal
proceeding or action in which such an oath may by law be administered, states, intentionally and
contrary to the oath, any material matter which the person knows to be false, is guilty of perjury”).
115
Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-16-702 (a)(1) (2010) (“A person commits an offense who, with intent to
deceive… makes a false statement, under oath”).
116
Tex. Code Ann., Penal Code § 37.02 (a) (2010) (“A person commits an offense if, with intent
to deceive and with knowledge of the statement’s meaning: (1) he makes a false statement under
oath or swears to the truth of a false statement previously made and the statement is required or
authorized by law to be made under oath”).
117
Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-434 (2010) (“If any person to whom an oath is lawfully administered on
any occasion willfully swears falsely on such occasion touching any material matter or thing… he
is guilty of perjury”).
118
See Gilbert, 126 P.3d at 1060 (assuming, without deciding, that the perjury rules apply equally
to arbitration proceedings); Self, 135 Ariz. 374 (holding that the “sworn statement” language in
the perjury statute facially applies to arbitration, and finding that an arbitration hearing before the
State Bar Committee constituted an “official proceeding” for the tampering charges); Hoolandt,
supra (acknowledging perjury in a worker’s compensation arbitration); Scott vs. Commonwealth,
416 S.E.2d 47, 49 (Va. Ct. App. 1992) (Neither Code § 18.2-434 nor Code § 18.2-435 expressly
restricts “testimony” to testimony given in judicial proceedings. In fact, Code § 18.2-434 provides
that it is perjury to swear falsely when an oath is lawfully administered “on any occasion”).
119
Wis. Stat. Ann. § 946.31 (d) (West 2010) (emphasis added).
120
N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:28-1 (a) (West 2010) (“Offense defined. A person is guilty of perjury, a
crime of the third degree, if in any official proceeding he makes a false statement under oath or
equivalent affirmation, or swears or affirms the truth of a statement previously made, when the
statement is material and he does not believe it to be true”).
121
Id. § 2C:277:1 (d) (2010).
A final minority of states limit perjury to judicial proceedings. In Georgia, per-

jury only applies to “judicial proceedings.”122 In Louisiana, perjury applies only in
a judicial or legislative proceeding.123 Massachusetts law applies solely in a “pro-
ceeding in a court of justice,”124 and not to arbitrations.125 Nevada perjury law ap-
plies to statements made in a judicial proceeding or when required by law.126 North
Carolina law similarly only applies when the witness is “required to be sworn or
affirmed.”127 Vermont perjury law applies to court and agency proceedings.128 West
Virginia perjury law applies only at trial or felony grand jury proceedings.129 The
Wyoming perjury law applies only to statements in “judicial, legislative or adminis-
trative proceedings.”130 Federal perjury law similarly applies in situations in which
an oath is required by law to be administered.131 These laws, then, clearly do not
apply to the arbitral forum, and legislative change would be necessary to make these
statutes apply to arbitration.
Tampering Statutes Similarly Do Not Apply to Arbitrations,

but Arbitrators Acknowledge Penalties for Wrongdoing
Within Individual Arbitrations
Tampering with documents and physical evidence, like lying, also has a devastat-
ing effect on the litigation and arbitral processes, weighing heaving on issues of
just conflict resolution. Consider the post-September 11, 2001 actions of Morgan
122
Ga. Code Ann. § 16-10-70 (a) (2010).
123
La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 14:123 (2010).
124
Mass. Gen. Law Ann. 268, § 1 (West 2012) (“Whoever, being lawfully required to depose the
truth in a judicial proceeding or in a proceeding in a court of justice, willfully swears or affirms
falsely in a matter material to the issue or point in question, or whoever, being required by law to
take an oath or affirmation, willfully swears or affirms falsely in a matter relative to which such
oath or affirmation is required, shall be guilty of perjury”).
125
Ezekiel vs. Jones Motor Co., 372 N.E.2d 1281, 1285 (Mass. 1978) (not applying perjury to a
labor arbitration).
126
Nev. Rev. Stat. § 199.120 (2010). Nevada case law emphasizes that an oath must be required
by law (i.e., not voluntary). Licata vs. State, 661 P.2d 1306, 1307 (Nev. 1983) (“We construe
the language of the statute to mean that a perjury charge may be sustained only where the false
statement was made in a judicial or other setting where an oath or affirmation is legally required.
Appellant’s voluntary statement taken in the insurance company lawyer’s office does not fall
within the purview of the statute and thus, appellant could not have been found guilty of perjury
in this case”).
127
N.C. Gen. Stat. Ann. § 14-209 (West 2010).
128
Vt. Code Ann. § 2901 (2010).
129
W. Va. Code § 61-5-1 (a) (2010).
130
Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 6-5-301 (a) (2010).
131
18 U.S.C. § 1621 (1) (2012).
262 K. M. Blankley
Stanley. Following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Morgan Stan-
ley intentionally withheld evidence from arbitration claimants, falsely claiming
that certain electronic evidence was destroyed in the twin towers. The documents
were not destroyed but, in fact, preserved at a different location. Morgan Stan-
ley withheld these documents from several thousand claimants in arbitration. In
2007, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) sanctioned Morgan
Stanley US $12.5 million for this scandalous conduct.132 In contrast, Morgan
Stanley suffered a US $1.4 billion dollar jury verdict based on its same lies in
civil litigation cases.133 Arguably, Morgan Stanley only suffered arbitration pen-
alties because of its association with FINRA, and not because the law required
such sanctions.
If Morgan Stanley and other participants could hide or destroy documents with-
out serious repercussion (and many would argue that Morgan Stanley’s FINRA
sanctions were not “serious” in light of rhe company’s overall net worth), then the
arbitral forum loses all credibility. Like perjury, the MPC has a model statute on
tampering that most states have adopted. Like the MPC perjury laws, the tampering
laws only apply in “official proceedings.”134 As discussed above, statutes referenc-
ing official proceedings do not clearly apply to arbitrations and require additional
clarification.
Most states follow the MPC definition of tampering: Alabama,135 Alaska,136
Arizona,137 Arkansas,138 Colorado,139 Connecticut,140 Delaware,141 the District
of Columbia,142 Hawaii,143 Idaho,144 Kentucky,145 Michigan,146 Mississippi,147
132
FINRA News Release, “Morgan Stanley to Pay $ 12.5 Million to Resolve FINRA Charges that
it Failed to Provide Documents to Arbitration Claimants, Regulators,” September 27, 2007.
133
Richard L. McConnell et al., “Compliance Readiness—Law Firms: Discovery of Electronic
Information: The Scylla of Excessive Cost and the Charybdis of Potential Sanctions,” at http://
www.metrocorpcounsel.com/current.php?artType=view&artMonth=October&artYear=2006&En
tryNo=5741 (last viewed June 14, 2011).
134
Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 241.7 (2007).
135
Ala. Code § 13A-10-129 (2010).
136
Alaska Stat. § 11.56.610.
137
Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 13-2809.
138
Ark. Code Ann. § 5-53-111 (2010).
139
Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 18-8-610 (West 2010).
140
Conn. Gen. Stat. Ann. § 53a-155 (West 2010).
141
11 Del. Code § 1274 (2010).
142
D.C. Stat. § 22-723 (2010).
143
Haw. Rev. Stat. § 710-1076 (2010).
144
Idaho Code Ann. § 18-2603 (2010).
145
Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 524.100 (West 2010).
146
Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 750.483a (5).
147
Miss. Code Ann. § 97-9-125 (2010).
Montana,148 Nebraska,149 New Hampshire,150 New Jersey,151 New York,152 North

Dakota,153 Ohio,154 Oklahoma,155 Oregon,156 Pennsylvania,157 South Dakota,158
Tennessee,159 Texas,160 Utah,161 and Washington.162 Legislative changes to the defi-
nition of “official proceedings” to include arbitration would then have a sweeping
effect and apply to both perjury and tampering laws.
Unlike perjury, some states recognize a civil cause of action based on evidence
tampering.163 The states of Alaska, District of Columbia, Florida, Kansas, Ohio,
Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Montana, New Mexico, West Virginia, and New Jer-
sey recognize this tort.164 Generally speaking, a plaintiff establishes a cause of
148
Mont. Code Ann. § 45-7-207 (2010).
149
Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 45-7 to -207 (2010).
150
N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 641:6.
151
N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:28:6 (2010).
152
N.Y. Penal Law § 251.40 (West, 2010).
153
N.D. Cent. Code § 12.1-09-03 (2010).
154
Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2921.12 (2010).
155
21 Okla.Stat. Ann. § 454 (2010).
156
Ore. Rev. Stat. § 162.295 (2010).
157
18 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 4910.
158
S.D. Comp. Laws § 19-7-14 (2010) (using the term “proceeding,” not “official proceeding”).
159
Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-16-503 (2010).
160
Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 37.09 (West 2010).
161
Utah Code Ann. § 76-8-510.5 (2010) (including a catchall provision of “examination under
oath”).
162
Wash. Rev. Code Ann. § 9A.72.150.
163
Comment, Cecelia Hallinan, Balancing the Scales After The Evidence is Spoiled: Does Penn-
sylvania’s Approach Sufficiently Protect the Injured Party?, 44 Vill. L. Rev. 947, 956 (1999) (de-
scribing the cause of action). Note that some jurisdictions require the completion of the underlying
cause of action before raising a claim of spoliation.
164
See Nichols vs. State Farm Ins. & Cas.Co., 6 P.3d 300 (Alaska 2000) (recognizing tort of
intentional spoliation of evidence); Holmes vs. Amerex Rent-A-Car, 710 A.2d 846 (D.C. 1998)
(establishing tort); Dardeen vs. Kuehling, 821 N.E.2d 227, 2321 (Ill. 2004) (establishing tort);
Clotzbach, CPA vs. Froman, 827 N.E.2d 105, 108 (Ind. App. 2005) (establishing tort); Desselle
vs. Jefferson Hosp. Dist. No. 2, 887 So. 2d 524, 534 (La. Ct. App. 2004) (recognizing a tort of
intentional spoliation); Gentry vs. Douglas Hereford Ranch, Inc., 962 P.2d 1205 (Mont. 1998)
(establishing tort); Manorcare Health vs. Osmose Wood, 336 N.J. Super. 218, 226, 764 A.2d 475,
479 (App. Div. 2001) (noting that destruction of evidence could result in a separate tort for spoli-
ation, discovery sanctions, or an adverse inference); Smith vs. Howard Johnson Co., 67 Ohio St.
3d 28, 29, 615 N.E.2d 1037 (1993) (applying tort); Hanna vs. Heeter, 584 S.E.2d 560, 563–64
(W. Va. 2003) (noting elements); DiDomenico vs. C & S Aeromatik Supplies, 252 A.D.2d 41,
682 N.Y.S.2d 452 (2d Dep’t 1998) (noting availability of tort, but holding tort not established
in the particular case).
Some states expressly reject this tort. Tobel vs. Travelers Ins. Co., 988 P.2d 148, 156 (Ariz. Ct.
App. 1999); Cedars-Sinai Med. Ctr. vs. Sup.Ct., 18 Cal. 4th 1, 74 Cal. Rptr. 2d 248, 258, 954 P.2d
511 (1998); Lucas vs. Christiana Skating Ctr., Ltd., 722 A.2d 1247, 1250 (Del. 1998); Lucas vs.
Christiana Skating Center, Ltd., 722 A.2d 1247, 1250 (1998); Owens vs. Am. Refuse. Sys., Inc.,
244 Ga. App. 780, 536 S.E.2d 782 (2000); Monsanto Co. vs. Reed, 950 S.W.2d 811, 815 (Ky.
264 K. M. Blankley
action by showing: (1) the existence of a potential civil action, (2) defendant’s
knowledge, (3) destruction of evidence, (4) intent, (5) inability to prove the origi-
nal claim (i.e., proximate cause), and (6) damages. Some states also recognize a
tort of negligent spoliation of evidence when the parties have a duty to preserve
evidence.165 Whether this cause of action applies to arbitration is largely an open
issue.166 The arbitrator’s jurisdiction makes these claims particularly difficult to
prove,167 especially when courts consider these claims to be post-arbitration col-
lateral attacks.168
Thankfully for arbitration parties, arbitrators are considering issues of document
destruction in the arbitral forum. Arbitrators who find that tampering occurs pun-
ish wrongdoing parties with a wide variety of sanctions, similar to the authority
of courts.169 Case law suggests that arbitrators are implementing sanctions such
as drawing adverse inferences against the wrongdoing party, meaning that the ar-
bitrator will simply assume that the documentary evidence now lost would have
1997).); Fletcher vs. Dorchester Mut. Ins. Co., 437 Mass. 544, 773 N.E.2d 420 (2002); Panich
vs. Iron Wood Prods. Corp., 445 N.W.2d 795 (Mich. Ct. App. 1989); Federated Mut. Ins. Co. vs.
Litchfield Precision Components, Inc., 456 N.W.2d 434, 437 (Minn. 1990); Dowdle Butane Gas
Co. vs. Moore, 831 So. 2d 1124, 1135 (Miss. 2002).; Patel vs. OMH Med. Ctr., Inc., 987 P.2d 1185
(Okla. 1999); Elias vs. Lancaster Gen. Hosp., 710 A.2d 65, 68 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1998); Malinowski
vs. Documented Vehicle/Drivers Sys., Inc., 66 F. App’x 216, 222 (R.I. 2003). Trevino vs. Ortega,
969 S.W.2d 950, 951 (Tex. 1998); Estate of Neumann ex rel. Rodli vs. Neumann, 242 Wis. 2d 205,
244–49, 626 N.W.2d 821, 840–43 (Wis.App., 2001).
165
See Holmes vs. Amerex Rent-A-Car, 710 A.2d 846 (D.C. 1998) (establishing torts for both
intentional and negligent spoliation); Dardeen vs. Kuehling, 821 N.E.2d 227, 2321 (Ill. 2004)
(holding that the tort of negligent spoliation fit within traditional negligence law); Clotzbach, CPA,
827 N.E.2d at 108 (requiring the finding of a duty whether the claim is for intentional or negligent
spoliation); Gentry, 962 P.2d 1205 (recognizing claim for intentional and negligent spoliation);
Smith, 67 Ohio St. 3d at 29, 615 N.E.2d 1037 (recognizing the tort of negligent spoliation, pro-
vided that the parties have a special relationship).
166
Arbitrability issues can arise in this area with courts considering whether the arbitrator has ju-
risdiction over this question in the first instance. See Clyde Bergemann, Inc. vs. Sullivan, Higgins
& Brion, PPE, L.L.C., 2008 WL 2116908 (D. Or. May 14, 2008) (compelling spoliation claim to
arbitration); Positive Software Solutions, Inc. vs. New Century Mortgage Co., 259 F. Supp. 2d 561
(N.D. Tex. 2003) (same); Dantz vs. Apple Ohio, L.L.C., 277 F. Supp. 2d 794 (N.D. Ohio 2003)
(same).
167
Some arbitral opinions evidence that parties have asked for damages for a cause of action for
spoliation. See In the Matter of Arbitration Between Name of Claimants Daniel G Parsons Ellen
M. Petri vs. Name of Respondent The Prudential Ins. Co. of Am., 1999 WL 681,721 (N.A.S.D. July
8 1999); In the Matter of Arbitration Between Name of Claimant Brenda Rose Names of Respon-
dents Lehwald Orosey Pepe, Inc., 1998 WL 11,78726 (N.A.S.D. August 5, 1998)
168
See, e.g., Ungerland vs. Morgan Stanley & Co., 2010 WL 1795628 (Conn. Super. Ct. April 5,
2010) (dismissing cause of action for spoliation as a collateral attack on the arbitration award).
169
Nearly every jurisdiction in the USA recognizes some types of sanctions for spoliation of evi-
dence. Those sanctions can range from drawing an adverse inference against the alleged spoliator
to an award of attorney’s fees to outright dismissal of a claim.
been favorable to the other party.170 Arbitrators also use adverse presumptions to
help support awards of punitive damages.171 Case law also suggests that arbitrators
will dismiss claims brought by a party found to have destroyed evidence.172 These
arbitration decisions demonstrate that arbitrators are beginning to address these im-
portant issues within the arbitral forum, which is at least a start in helping to ensure
ethical behavior in arbitration.
Professional Ethics Laws Already Extend to the Arbitral Forum,

and the Criminal Law has Not Yet Caught Up
Although the criminal law relating to the administration of justice does not ap-
ply to the arbitral forum, the attorney ethics rules have recently been updated to
apply to the arbitral forum. The ethical rules dealing with an attorney’s conduct in
the administration of justice were updated in 2002. While the criminal laws apply
generally to “official proceedings,” the ethical rules discuss behavior appropriate
before a “tribunal.” Part of these changes included defining the term “tribunal” to
include binding arbitration.173 The ethical rules dealing with truthfulness and proper
170
See, e.g., Jones vs. PPG Indus., 2010 WL 3565731 (3d Cir. September 15, 2010). Interestingly,
the Jones court involved a claim in which the arbitrator found an adverse inference against the
respondent party and then still ruled in favor of the respondent. The trial court and Third Circuit
confirmed the arbitral award based a review of the extensive record in the case.
171
See, e.g., Davis vs. Reliance Elec., 104 S.W.3d 57 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2002). In Davis, the arbi-
trator had grave concerns regarding the respondent-employer’s failure to provide certain critical
documents, so the arbitrator awarded punitive damages against the employer based on a portion
of the employer’s net worth.
172
See, e.g., AmeriCredit Fin. Serv., Inc. vs. Oxford Mgmt. Serv., 627 F. Supp. 2d 85 (E.D.N.Y.
2008) (confirming award dismissing counterclaims when the party asserting the counterclaims
destroyed documents relevant to the claim).
173
Model Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 1. 0 (m 2010) (“‘Tribunal’ denotes a court, an
arbitrator in a binding arbitration proceeding or a legislative body, administrative agency or other
body acting in an adjudicative capacity. A legislative body, administrative agency or other body
acts in an adjudicative capacity when a neutral official, after the presentation of evidence or legal
arguments by a party or parties, will render a binding legal judgment directly affecting a party’s
interests in a particular matter”); see also W. Suflas, The Role of Ethics in ADR Leading Lawyers
on Understanding the Ethical Obligation of Attorneys Engaging in Alternative Dispute Resolu-
tion, Aspatore, at *3 (November 2011) (“A ‘tribunal’ is defined broadly to specifically include ‘an
arbitrator in a binding arbitration proceeding’”). Non-binding arbitration proceedings are exempt
from these ethical rules.
States adopting this definition of tribunal include (found in Rule 1.0 of the respective state’s model
rules, unless otherwise noted): Arizona; Colorado; Connecticut; Delaware; District of Columbia;
Georgia (unnumbered Terminology section); Idaho; Indiana; Iowa (Rule 32:1.0); Kansas; Ken-
tucky (SCR 3/130 (1.0)); Louisiana; Maine; Maryland; Minnesota; Missouri (Rule 4-1.0); Mon-
tana; Nebraska (Rule 3-501.0); Nevada; New Hampshire; New Jersey; New Mexico (Rule 16-
100); New York; North Carolina; North Dakota; Ohio; Oklahoma; Oregon; Pennsylvania; Rhode
Island; South Carolina; South Dakota; Tennessee; Texas (undefined definitions’ section); Utah;
Vermont; Washington; Wisconsin; and Wyoming.
266 K. M. Blankley
relations among adversaries all apply to the arbitral forum—unlike the criminal law.
Ethics Rule 3.3, dealing with Candor toward the Tribunal, reads:
a. A lawyer shall not knowingly:
1. make a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal or fail to correct a false state-
ment of material fact or law previously made to the tribunal by the lawyer;
2. offer evidence that the lawyer knows to be false. If a lawyer, the lawyer’s cli-
ent, or a witness called by the lawyer, has offered material evidence and the
lawyer comes to know of its falsity, the lawyer shall take reasonable remedial
measures, including, if necessary, disclosure to the tribunal. A lawyer may
refuse to offer evidence, other than the testimony of a defendant in a criminal
matter, that the lawyer reasonably believes is false.174
In addition, an attorney cannot knowingly procure false testimony from a witness,
and if a witness gives false testimony, the attorney must remediate the situation,
including disclosing the untruthfulness of the statement(s) to the tribunal.175
Attorneys are also prohibited from tampering with documents and evidence.
Model Rule 3.4 prohibits an attorney from “unlawfully obstruct[ing] another party’s
access to evidence or unlawfully alter[ing], destroy[ing] or conceal[ing] a document
or other material having potential evidentiary value. A lawyer shall not counsel or
assist another person to do any such act.”176 Most states have adopted variations
A number of states have not adopted any definition of tribunal. Those states include: Alabama,
Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Mississippi, Virginia, and West Virginia. Massachu-
setts defines “tribunal” only as a “court or other adjudicatory body.” Mass. R. Prof. Resp., R. 9.1
(o). Presumably, arbitration is an “adjudicatory body” because the purpose of arbitration is to make
final and binding determinations of law and fact. The New York law does not contain a limitation
on binding arbitrations, but it applies to all arbitration proceedings. NY Rules of Professional Con-
duct, R. 1.0 (w). Hawaii proposed an amendment to its rules of professional conduct that would
include the above definition of the word “tribunal.” Proposed HRPC Final Version, at http://www.
hsba.org/resources/1/HRPC/Proposed%20HRPC%20Final%20Version.pdf.
174
Model Code of Professional Responsibility, R. 3.3 (a) (2002) (emphasis added). The fol-
lowing states adopted this, or a substantially similar rule (found in Rule 3.3 of the respective
state’s model rules, unless otherwise noted): Alabama; Alaska; Arizona; Arkansas; Colorado;
Connecticut; Delaware; District of Columbia; Florida (Rule 4-3.3); Georgia; Hawaii; Idaho;
Illinois; Indiana; Iowa (Rule 32:3.3); Kansas; Kentucky (SCR 3.130 (3.3)); Louisiana; Maine;
Maryland; Massachusetts; Michigan; Minnesota; Mississippi; Missouri (Rule 4-3.3); Montana;
Nebraska (Rule 3-503.3); Nevada; New Hampshire; New Jersey; New Mexico (Rule 16-303);
New York; North Carolina; North Dakota; Ohio; Oklahoma; Oregon; Pennsylvania; Rhode Is-
land; South Carolina; South Dakota; Tennessee; Texas (Rule 3.03); Utah; Vermont; Virginia;
Washington; West Virginia; Wisconsin; and Wyoming. See also Restatement (Third) of The Law
Governing Lawyers § 120 (2000).
175
Model R. Prof. Conduct R. 3. 3 (b) (2002).
176
Model Rule of Professional Conduct R. 3.4; See also Restatement (Third) of The Law Gov-
erning Lawyers § 117. The following states adopted a version of Model Rule of Professional
Conduct 3.4 dealing with candor towards opposing counsel and parties (labeled as Rule 3.4, unless
otherwise noted): Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District
of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisi-
on these rules and similarly prohibit attorneys from lying and interfering with evi-
dence. Given the broad language of these ethical rules, they apply to the arbitral
forum—unlike their criminal law counterparts.
The ethical rules for attorneys have clearly caught up with modern ADR prac-
tice. These rules recognize that attorneys must be bound to certain baselines of ethi-
cal behavior even when they are not representing clients before a court. Although
having strong ethical rules governing the arbitral forum is important, having ethical
rules alone is not enough. These ethical rules only govern the conduct of parties.
They do not apply to the conduct of non-attorneys, including witnesses, experts,
non-attorney clients, and pro se parties. In other words, they are extremely limited
in their application. Given the limited scope of the current ethical rules and the
incredible range of conduct that these rules do not—and cannot—reach, this chap-
ter calls for a legislative change that would extend the criminal law to the arbitral
forum, as discussed in the next section.
A Simple Recommendation to Close the Loopholes
This chapter recommends a very simple legislative change that would close the
ethical loophole and help ensure that all arbitration participants engage in a fair
process free of corruption, lies, deception, and fraud. If the criminal state statutes
dealing with the “administration of justice” added “binding arbitration” to the
list of “official proceedings,” then the entire chapter would apply to arbitration—
including the statutes dealing with perjury, false statements, document tamper-
ing, and witness tampering. In other words, adding two words to one definition
would, in one fell swoop, create a fairer system of arbitration by disincentivizing
unethical behavior and creating the potential for criminal liability for engaging in
wrongdoing.
This change to the criminal law is long overdue. Most states’ laws regarding
the administration of justice date back to the 1960s, when the MPC was first pro-
mulgated. Arbitration looked significantly different in the 1960s than it does today.
In the 1960s, arbitration largely involved arms-length agreements to arbitrate be-
tween business entities. Arbitrators usually heard fact-intensive cases dealing with
the quality of goods, delivery of goods, and other similar issues. Arbitrators, at that
time, often did not possess a law degree. In fact, parties often chose these arbitrators
because of their technical expertise in industry. Arbitration today looks consider-
ably different. Pre-dispute arbitration agreements are common in any number of
contracts in the commercial, consumer, and employment contexts. Many arbitra-
tions now resolve statutory claims of all types—which is a relatively new develop-
ana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklaho-
ma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah,
Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
268 K. M. Blankley
ment in arbitration law.177 In addition, far more attorneys participate in arbitration

now than in the 1960s, both as advocates and as arbitrators. This changing nature of
arbitration requires additional safeguards governing the process, to ensure that the
process is fair for all participants, given the increasing “legal” nature of arbitration.
As noted above, the increased application of absolute immunity to the arbitral fo-
rum practically requires that the criminal law governing crimes against the adminis-
tration of justice apply to arbitration. The policy reasons for immunity apply equally
to the arbitral forum as the judicial forum (if not more so), but immunity was al-
ways intended to involve a trade-off. The grant of immunity does not mean that a
fact-finding and rights resolving forum should become lawless. To the contrary, the
grant of immunity only makes sense if the criminal law exists as a back-stop so that
justice can be served in dispute resolution. A system of immunity without criminal
consequences has the potential to breed lawlessness. In this situation, extending
the criminal law regarding the administration of justice to the arbitral forum would
close the loophole created by the widespread grant of absolute immunity in the
arbitral forum.
Although criminal prosecutions for crimes relating to the administration of jus-
tice are relatively rare,178 the change to the criminal law would serve additional
purposes than simply pressing criminal charges against those who commit wrong-
doing in the arbitral forum. The criminal law serves as a powerful deterrent. Hav-
ing a criminal law on the books applicable to the arbitral forum would presumably
discourage parties, witnesses, and other arbitration participants from considering
engaging in unethical conduct out of the fear of criminal prosecution.
Finally, making this change to the criminal law would instill ethical require-
ments without disturbing the authority or power of the arbitrators. Slightly modi-
fying the criminal law in this manner would not require any invasive changes to
the arbitration process. In fact, it would not require any changes to the arbitration
process at all. The authority of the arbitrator would not change and no changes
would be required to occur in the arbitral process. What would change is the avail-
ability of post-arbitration relief through criminal sanctions. As discussed below,
the scope of judicial review is already incredibly limited for arbitration partici-
pants—especially for those who attempt to have an award vacated on the basis
177
The nature of consumer and employment arbitration changed in 1991 when the Supreme Court
decided the case Gilmer v. Interstate Johnson, 500 U.S. 44, 50 (1991). The Gilmer Court held that
a party could enforce a pre-dispute agreement to arbitrate statutory claims, such as discrimina-
tion claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Following Gilmer, the floodgates
opened and many large companies began requiring consumers and employees to agree to arbitrate
all claims, including statutory claims.
178
Erin Murphy, Manufacturing Crime: Process, Pretext, and Criminal Justice, 97 Geo. L.J.
1435, 1489 (2009) (noting that, while perjury charges are hard to quantify, sources indicate
that as little as 0.2 % of all federally filed felonies are perjury charges, and noting that perjury
charges are more likely filed in high-profile cases or cases involving difficult cases other than
the process crimes).
of fraud.179 The expansion of the criminal law to arbitration participants would

simply give arbitration participants the opportunity to petition the local prosecu-
tors to levy criminal charges against the wrongdoers.
The fundamental nature of arbitration would not change as a result of this pro-
posal. The proposal would not impose any changes to the structure of arbitration
itself, and arbitrators and parties would maintain arbitration’s benefits of flexibil-
ity, finality, and informality. Parties will still have strong incentives to take claims
of wrongdoing directly to the arbitrator as soon as they are aware of such problems
given the very stringent standards of review and the possibility of a challenge for
waiver. Arbitrators will still have full authority over the process, and this change
to the criminal law would not have any impact on the way individual arbitrations
are run.
In sum, the development of arbitral immunity to arbitration participants serves
valid and lofty policies, while promoting justice in resolving conflicts in the arbitral
forum. The extension of immunity, however, without a corresponding change in the
criminal law is creating a wide gap, or a loophole, in the area of arbitration ethics.
Extending the criminal law regarding the administration of justice would fill this
gap while preserving the integrity of the arbitral process and arbitration’s indepen-
dence from the court systems.
The Extraordinarily High Burden of Proof for Vacatur

for Fraud Prevents Wrongfully Procured Awards from
Being Overturned
In addition to the loophole explained above relating to the extension of the immuni-
ty doctrine, the evolution of the judicial review available in instances of participant
fraud has created another ethical loophole. Unlike any other form of judicial review
of arbitration awards, the common law development for review for “fraud” go
beyond the statutory text and require a showing of “clear and convincing” evidence
of fraud before vacating an arbitration award. This burden of proof is unjustified
compared to the burdens of proof of other grounds for vacatur of arbitration awards
and out of line with how the judicial system normally reviews such issues. For these
reasons, this chapter advocates that the common law abandon the heightened plead-
ing standard and simply consider whether the standard for vacatur has been met to
overturn an arbitration award.
179
As will be demonstrated below, a showing of fraud requires a “clear and convincing” eviden-
tiary burden, unlike the burden of proof for any other standard of review.
270 K. M. Blankley
Judicial Review Generally Under the Federal Arbitration Act

and Common Law Development
Judicial review of arbitral awards is limited by statutory design. Limited review

promotes finality, one of the hallmarks of arbitration law and policy.180 In light of
the federal and state policies in favor of arbitration, limited review “thereby dis-
courages litigation.”181 Litigation is discouraged because parties will understand
that their chance for vacatur is low and so they will not use their limited resources
to fight a likely losing battle. When as few as one in seven awards are vacated across
the country, losing arbitration parties should consider very carefully whether they
will pursue review in court.182
The grounds for review are extraordinarily narrow. Federal law recognizes four
grounds for review. Those grounds are:
1. where the award was procured by corruption, fraud, or undue means
2. where there was evident partiality or corruption in the arbitrators, …
3. where the arbitrators were guilty of misconduct in refusing to postpone the hear-
ing, upon sufficient cause shown, or in refusing to hear evidence pertinent and
material to the controversy; or of any other misbehavior by which the rights of
any party have been prejudiced or
4. where the arbitrators exceeded their powers, or so imperfectly executed them
that a mutual, final, and definite award upon the subject matter submitted was
not made 183
These four statutory grounds for review are limited in that they do not deal with
the award itself, but externalities that would cause the court not to have faith in the
arbitration process. Consider some of the things not reviewable, including the cor-
rectness of the award, the arbitrator’s evidentiary rulings, the arbitrator’s rulings on
motions, the arbitrator’s factual findings, the arbitrator’s findings with respect to
credibility, and the legal soundness of the award. When viewing arbitration from a
contract standpoint, these limitations make sense. Parties voluntarily contract with
one another to resolve disputes outside of the traditional legal system. Limited re-
view protects the contractual arrangement of the parties by elevating the importance
of finality over the importance of a “correct” decision. Such balancing aims at pre-
serving the parties’ contractual wish to resolve the dispute through an appointed
third-party arbitrator.
More recently, the common law has developed new, slightly expanded forms
of judicial review of arbitral awards. These additional grounds for review are not
180
See supra Section II (D) 2010 (1).
181
Low vs. Minichino, 267 P.3d 683, 689 (Haw. 2011) (reversing the decision of the court below
confirming an award challenged on the basis of fraud so that the lower court can hold an eviden-
tiary hearing on the issue).
182
Stephen K. Huber & Maureen A Weston, Arbitration: Cases and Materials, by Huber, 2nd
Edition (2006).
183
9 U.S.C. § 10 (a) (2002).
accepted in all jurisdictions, and the Supreme Court has not definitively ruled on
whether they are proper grounds for review.184 The most commonly employed non-
statutory ground for review is a review of an award for an arbitrator’s “manifest
disregard of the law.” An arbitrator manifestly disregards the law when the arbitra-
tor was aware of the applicable law (usually because a party supplied the arbitrator
with such law) and the arbitrator ignored the law.185 Mere misapplication of the
law is insufficient to warrant vacatur. The line between “manifest disregard” and a
substantively wrong decision is extraordinarily difficult to define, but relatively few
decisions are vacated under the “manifest disregard” standard. Given the Supreme
Court’s ambiguous statements in dicta regarding “manifest disregard” in the Hall
Street and Stolt-Nielsen cases about the viability of the manifest disregard standard,
the federal circuit courts are currently split on the continuing availability of this
standard of review.186
In addition to “manifest disregard,” some courts will vacate an award on the
basis that the award contravenes public policy. The “public policy” ground con-
siders whether the public policy is clearly defined and the arbitration award is in
contravention to that clearly defined policy. Mere “inconsistency with a court’s gen-
eralized view of public policy” is not sufficient to vacate an arbitration award.187
Courts most often utilize the public policy exception when labor arbitrators award
reinstatement of a person not fit for the workplace—such as an airline pilot with a
documented history of alcoholism and drinking on the job.188 As with the exception
for manifest disregard, the Supreme Court expressed some doubt as to the continu-
ing sustainability of the public policy exception in a recent decision.189 Whether or
184
Over the past few years, the Supreme Court has given indications that only the four enumerated
grounds for review listed in Sect. 10 (a) of the FAA can be used to vacate an arbitration award. In
Hall St. Assocs. vs. Mattel, Inc., 552 US 576 (2008), the Supreme Court held that parties could not
contract for a standard of review greater than that proscribed in Sect. 10 (a). The Court left open
the possibility that courts could review an award based on standards other than those in the statute.
The Court acknowledged, but did not resolve this issue again in Stolt-Nielsen, S.A vs. Animal-
Feeds Int’l, 130 S. Ct. 1758 (2010). For the purposes of this chapter, whether these grounds exist
is immaterial because these grounds of review deal with an arbitrator’s award, as opposed to the
conduct of an opposing party or witness.
185
See, e.g., Wachovia Sec., L.L.C. vs. Brand, 671 F.3d 472, 481 (4th Cir. 2012) (“Before Hall
Street, we stated that for a court to vacate an award under the manifest disregard theory, the
arbitration record must show that ‘(1) the applicable legal principle is clearly defined and not
subject to reasonable debate; and (2) the arbitrator[ ] refused to heed that legal principle’”)
(citation omitted).
186
See Wachovia Sec., 671 F.3d at 481–83 (discussing the Supreme Court’s decisions and the
resulting circuit split).
187
Lagstein vs. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s, London, 607 F.3d 634, 641 n.4 (9th Cir. 2010).
188
See, e.g., Delta Air Lines, Inc. vs. Air Line Pilots Ass’n, 861 F.2d 665 (11th Cir. 1988) (finding
a violation of public policy when a labor arbitrator awarded reinstatement of a pilot who flew a
passenger aircraft while intoxicated).
189
In the 2012 decision of Marmet Health Care Ctr., Inc. vs. Brown, 565 U.S. ___ (2012), the
US Supreme Court reversed a decision by the West Virginia Supreme Court invalidating certain
nursing home contracts as violative of public policy. While never stating that the public policy
exception does not exist, the Court struck down the West Virginia decision as preempted by the
272 K. M. Blankley
not this exception continues to exist, finding a court to vacate a decision on public
policy grounds is still rare.
Unlike the statutory grounds listed above, these two additional grounds delve
deeper into the arbitrator’s decision-making power. Arguably, whether an award
is in manifest disregard of the law or violates public policy concerns the “correct-
ness” of the award. The review, however, is still not searching (i.e., party perceived
“incorrect” decisions will likely still be upheld). And the likelihood of successfully
achieving a vacated decision is still slim. In sum, all of the grounds for judicial
review are difficult to achieve, and the courts have not expressed much willingness
to vacate awards liberally.
The Evolution of Judicial Review in the Case of Awards

Challenged for “Fraud”
Examining these grounds for review, the most plausible grounds for review based
on a party’s or witness’s misconduct would be to challenge the award under Sect. 10
(a) (1) for corruption or fraud or undue means for the bad actions of the arbitration
party or other participant (i.e., witnesses and attorneys). In fact, Sect. 10 (a) (1) has
been the vehicle by which courts have considered whether a party’s misconduct
should warrant vacatur.
Unlike Sect. 10 (a) (1), every other ground for review deals with the arbitrator’s
conduct—not the conduct of any other participant. The text of Sect. 10 (a) (1) does
not specify how the award was procured by corruption, fraud, or undue mean. Given
that the other sections specify that the arbitrator must have committed the conduct
worthy of vacatur, established theories of statutory interpretation would dictate that
if Sect. 10 (a) (1) does not limit who commits the corruption, fraud, or undue means,
then that conduct could have been done by either the arbitrator or another person.
Reading the statute, then, Sect. 10 (a) (1) does not require any wrongdoing on the
part of the arbitrator. In fact, the arbitrator can be innocent of actually committing
wrongdoing, but another party’s wrongdoing—here an opposing party or witness—
has led to an award that is corrupt, fraudulent, or rendered by undue means because
of the bad conduct of another arbitration participant.190 Because Sect. 10 (a) (1)
is the only ground for vacatur not premised on arbitrator misconduct, this section
would be the only grounds available for arbitration participants who seek to vacate
an award on the misconduct of a party, witness, or attorney.
Federal Arbitration Act—thus leaving in doubt whether any public policy exception based on state
law would not be preempted.
190
The FAA has a handful of limited grounds for vacatur, but the one most often invoked in situ-
ations involving perjury or tampering is the exception for fraud. See, e.g., Trans Chem. Ltd. vs.
P.R.C. Nat. Mach. Imp. & Exp. Corp., 161 F.3d 314, 319 (5th Cir. 1998) (“Willful destruction or
withholding of evidence constitutes fraud under the FAA”).
Fraud, however, is extraordinarily difficult to prove in the arbitration con-

text.191 Unlike any other judicial review under Sect. 10 (a), the burden of prov-
ing vacatur under Sect. 10 (a) (1) is higher than the burden of proving any other
grounds under Sect. 10 (a) or under the limited common law grounds for vacatur
noted above. The common law developed the following test to prove fraud in the
context of vacating an arbitration award: “the fraud was (1) not discoverable upon
the exercise of due diligence prior to the arbitration, (2) materially related to an
issue in the arbitration, and (3) established by clear and convincing evidence.”192
The “clear and convincing” standard is one of the highest burdens of proof in civil
litigation. In comparison, the common de novo standard gives the reviewer the
discretion to review anew and make decisions without any deference to the prior
decision-maker.
Plaintiffs asserting fraud based on alleged misconduct of parties and witnesses
have not been very successful in post-arbitration motions to vacate, in part because
of the high burden of proof.193 In addition, courts examining the issue also tend to
distinguish between cases in which the complaining party addressed the issue of
fraud with the arbitrator during the hearing and those cases in which the parties ad-
191
Fraud is difficult to prove in any context. A cause of action for fraud requires a heightened
pleading standard, see, e.g., Fed. R. Civ. P. 9 (b), and a higher burden of proof. Fraud in the context
of FAA § 10 (a)(2007) (1) is different than fraud generally, but it is still difficult to prove.
192
Lafarge Conseils Et Etudes, S.A. vs. Kaiser Cement & Gypsum Corp., 791 F.2d 1334, 1339
(9th Cir. 1986) (emphasis added) (affirming confirmation of an arbitration award despite allega-
tions of document falsification because the information was discoverable with the exercise of due
diligence); see also Smith West, LLC vs. Mognach Payne Inc., 2010 WL 2471051, *2 (Ariz. App.
Div. June 17, 2010) (“[A] party seeking to vacate an arbitration award claiming fraud must show
‘that the fraud was (1) not discoverable upon the exercise of due diligence prior to the arbitration,
(2) materially related to an issue in the arbitration, and (3) established by clear and convincing
evidence’”) (citing Lafarge Conseils Et Etudes, S.A., 791 F.2d at 1339). This test appears to be the
test that a majority of the courts employ when confronted with a motion for vacatur on the grounds
of fraud. Other tests are employed in a minority of jurisdictions. See, e.g., 6 C.J.S., Arbitration
§ 151, p. 400 (“As a general rule any fraud or misconduct having a tendency to affect the award
improperly will vitiate it and render it subject to impeachment”); Prof’l Builders, Inc. vs. Sedan
Floral, Ind., 819 P.2d 1254, 1258 (Kan. Ct. App. 1991) (same).
193
Molten Metal Equip. Innovations vs. Pyotek, Inc., 2010 WL 2639912, at *2 (N.D. Ohio June 29,
2010) (articulating same test and holding that no clear and convincing evidence of fraud existed
that was not already presented to the arbitrator and noting that the reason for the rule is because a
broader review would “undermine a substantive determination made by the arbitrator”); Site, Inc.
vs. Peabody Const. Co., 872 N.E.2d 841 (Mass. App. Ct. 2007) (“In addition, the court held that
perjury itself does not constitute fraud for the purposes of vacating a judgment where the moving
party cannot demonstrate that the judicial process itself was corrupted by the perjury”); Artco, Inc.
vs. DiFruscia, 5 Mass. App. Ct. 513, 518 (1977) (“There is no fraud on the court where a judg-
ment has been obtained with the aid of a witness who, on the basis of after-discovered evidence,
is believed possibly to have been guilty of perjury”); Groves vs. Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, &
Smith, Inc., 2006, at *4WL 2059514 (N.J. Super. A.D. 2006) (finding movant did not establish
fraud based on alleged document tampering when the arbitrator considered the issue in the first
instance); Thomas vs. Lusk, 27 Cal. App. 4th 1709 (1994) (reversing judgment in favor of plaintiff,
client, in an action for legal malpractice when the plaintiff alleged that his counsel allowed evi-
dence kept at plaintiff’s workplace to spoilate prior to an arbitration when both parties had equal
access to the evidence).
274 K. M. Blankley
dress the issue of fraud for the first time on appeal. Both situations involve signifi-
cant limitations on a party’s ability to have an award vacated based on participant
fraudulent conduct.
If an arbitrator considered the issue of fraud and ruled against the party now
claiming vacatur, courts are particularly reluctant to overturn an issue an arbitrator
already considered. In those cases, the arbitrator heard evidence on the issue and
ruled. Courts are quite hesitant to overturn a decision that has been considered and
decided by an arbitrator—especially because the arbitrator would have considered
the witness testimony first hand or otherwise personally observed the complained of
conduct.194 Because telling the truthfulness of a witness or determining the wrong-
fulness of conduct necessarily involves a credibility assessment and determination
of the subjective intent of the alleged wrongful actors, courts are significantly more
likely to defer to the arbitrator’s assessment of the participants’ motivations and
actions.195
If a party first raises the issue of party misconduct at the point of a motion for va-
catur of the award, that party faces a significant challenge overcoming an allegation
of waiver—which is embodied within the test for fraud, as noted above. The party
instituting the motion for vacatur will have a high burden of proving that the party
was not aware of the alleged fraudulent conduct during the course of the proceeding
such that the arbitrator could have ruled on the issue in the first instance.196 If at all
possible, the court would rather the arbitrator determine these issues first given the
issues of credibility and subjective intent. In addition, requiring an arbitrator to hear
these complaints in the first instance prevents parties from having “two bites” at the
194
See Jones vs. Dykstra, 2008 WL 4901080 (November 17, 2008) (affirming confirmation of
award because under California law, even if the losing party could show fraud with respect to
document destruction, such fraud is “intrinsic” fraud and not a basis upon which an arbitration
award may be vacated).
195
Sometimes the arbitrator finds that a witness lied or that a party committed misconduct during
the hearing. The awards in cases in which an arbitrator found participant misconduct are equally
difficult to vacate (here, by the party who allegedly engaged in the misconduct). See, e.g., Hendrik
Delivery Serv., Inc. vs. St. Louis Post-Dispatch L.L.C., 2007 WL 3071827 (E.D. Mo. October 19,
2007) (confirming an award in which an arbitrator awarded punitive damages, in part, because of
the respondent’s destruction of documents and failure to create a record of information pertinent
to the upcoming arbitration).
196
See, e.g., Clyde Bergemann, Inc. vs. Sullivan, Higgins & Brion, 2008 WL 4279632 (D. Or. Sep-
tember 18, 2008) (“ARC also argues that it is prejudiced by defendants’ delay in seeking arbitra-
tion because of defendants’ alleged spoliation of evidence. I am unpersuaded by ARC’s contention
that the arbitrator cannot appropriately remedy the situation, if he concludes that the allegations are
true”); Gateway Funding Diversified Mortg. Serv., L.P. v. Field, 2008 WL 2758877 (E.D. Pa. July
10, 2008) (confirming arbitration award despite arguments that one party destroyed documents
when the arbitrator considered the issue on a full record and refused to apply an adverse inference);
Banc of Am. Inv. Serv., Inc. vs. Plycraft Indus., 2005 WL 905927 (Cal. Ct. App. April 20, 2005)
(enjoining a claim of spoliation from proceeding in arbitration under the doctrine of res judicata
when the plaintiff failed to bring such a claim in a first arbitration against Bank of America in a
claim involving investment advice and when the plaintiff actually used evidence of the “missing”
documentation in the first arbitration).
apple if the fraud could have been discovered at the time of the hearing.197 Thus,
courts are quick to find that a party has waived the ability to bring a challenge for
fraud. Even if the party can survive the waiver hurdle, the party still has the rela-
tively high burden of proving fraud by clear and convincing evidence.
While this “clear and convincing” evidentiary burden likely stems from the bur-
den of proof for civil fraud,198 requiring such a high burden of proof in the arbitra-
tion context makes little sense.199 Parties seeking to vacate an arbitration award on
the basis of fraud are not trying to prove a cause of action for fraud resulting in
damages. Instead, these parties seek only to have a previously issued award vacated
on review.200 The movant’s request, or “prayer,” to the court is simply that the award
be vacated. This is the exact same type of relief that parties would seek under any of
the grounds for review. Because the relief is the same and the party requesting relief
is not instituting an affirmative cause of action, this heightened review makes little
sense in the arbitral forum.
Although the waiver requirement may make sense, the heightened standard of
review does not. The waiver requirement is a good incentive that arbitrators hear
and decide these issues in the first instance, with the ability to weigh evidence (per-
haps as it occurs) and consider the credibility of witnesses involved. The waiver
requirement also encourages parties to deal with wrongdoing as it happens in the
first instance, rather than waiting until an arbitrator decides the case on the merits
and taking the award up on review by a court. This requirement further supports the
197
Id. at 691 (“The second element [of the test for fraud] prevents the movant from taking a
‘second bite at the apple’ if the fraud could have been discovered at arbitration”). The Low court
also recognized that the test for vacatur on the basis of fraud “sets a high standard in order to deter
motions that merely seeks to relitigate issues that were already—or could have been—presented to
the arbitrator. The test therefore preserves the parties’ bargain for the judgment of the arbitrator.”
Low, 267 P.3d at 692.
198
See, e.g., Kelly vs. VinZant, 197 P.3d 803 (2008) (requiring a plaintiff to prove the following
elements of fraud by clear and convincing evidence: (1) a false statement of material fact; (2) that
was known to be false or was recklessly made without knowledge concerning falsity; (3) the rep-
resentation was intentionally made for the purpose of inducing another party to act; (4) the other
party reasonably relied and acted upon the representation made; and (5) resulting in damages);
Fleges, Inc. vs. Truserv Corp., 2009 WL 424813 (Ky. February 19, 2009) (requiring a plaintiff
to prove by clear and convincing evidence that: (1) statement of material fact, (2) that was false,
(3) that declarant knew to be false or made recklessly, (4) that declarant induced plaintiff to act
upon the misrepresentation, (5) that plaintiff relied upon the misrepresentation, and (6) that the
misrepresentation caused damages); Cowburn vs. Leventis, 619 S.E.2d 437 (S.C. Ct. App. 2005)
(requiring clear and convincing evidence to prove fraud).
199
Worth noting is the fact that arbitration is a non-public proceeding that may or may not be
transcribed or recorded. The amount and type of record in an arbitration might change from case to
case, depending on the amount at stake and the financial resources of the parties involved. Proving
fraud on the basis of an incomplete record may be difficult, logistically, to do. An additional con-
straint on the process could be issues of confidentiality, and whether the parties are even at liberty
to discuss what happened at the arbitration.
200
To be sure, some financial repercussion will result if an award is vacated. Typically, the movant
seeks to vacate in order to not pay money that is awarded to the non-movant. The movant in this
action typically seeks not to get money but to prevent paying out money.
276 K. M. Blankley
contractual agreement of the parties. The parties agreed to have a dispute resolved
by an arbitrator—not a court. Allowing a court to step in and resolve a side dispute
pertaining directly to the merits of the dispute before the arbitrator would impose on
the province of the arbitrator and likely lengthen the time of dispute resolution, thus
cutting against the efficiency of the process. For these reasons, the waiver require-
ment imposed by the common law makes infinite sense and should be maintained.
To the contrary, the higher burden required for vacatur under Sect. 10(a)(1) does
not make sense. As will be demonstrated below, this burden is unlike any other bur-
den imposed on parties seeking to vacate arbitration awards. This standard—an ap-
parent carryover from the civil claim for fraud—has little application in the review
of arbitration awards, given the fact that neither party seeks an affirmative judgment
for damages, but only a review of a decision made by a third-party neutral.
The Standard for Review under Sect. 10 (a) (1) is Inconsistent

and Significantly More Burdensome than any other Review
Under the Federal Arbitration Act
This standard of review is unlike any other under the FAA. None of the other grounds
for review requires a heightened pleading standard. On the contrary, the courts re-
view arbitration awards on a de novo basis to determine whether the plaintiff can
show that the arbitration award fits within one of the other four narrow categories
(or one of the two common-law categories).201 This section considers the standards
of review for all of the other grounds of review for the FAA, as well as the common
law standards of manifest disregard and contrary to public policy. As will be shown,
the standard required under Sect. 10 (a) (1) is far more burdensome than any other.
The Standard of Review Under Sect. 10 (a) (2) Simply Requires

a “Reasonable Showing”
Section 10 (a) (2) of the FAA allows a court to vacate an arbitration award if there
was “evident partiality or corruption” in the arbitrators.202 The common law devel-
201
Courts often conflate the grounds for review with the standard of review. Although the grounds
are limited, the burden of proving these grounds is typically analyzed on a de novo basis. See, e.g.,
Allstate N.J. Ins. Co. vs. Driscoll, 2011 WL 408837, at *2 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. February 19,
2011) (“Where, as here, a party seeks to vacate an award pursuant to N.J.S.A. 2A:23A-13c(3), the
trial court ‘shall make an independent determination of any facts relevant [to the application for
vacating the award] de novo, upon such record as may exist or as it may determine in a summary
expedited proceeding’”); Braata, Inc. vs. Oneida Cold Storage Co., 251 P.3d 584, 588 (Colo. App.
2010) (“The latter issue is explicitly assigned to the court to decide by section 13–22–206(2),
C.R.S.2009, and each of the other bases to vacate necessarily requires de novo findings by a
court”).
202
9 U.S.C. § 10 (a)(2).
opment for the standard of review under this section is significantly more lenient
than the standard of review noted above under Sect. 10 (a) (1). The disconnect
serves no real purpose given that the statute makes no distinction in the burdens of
proof among the grounds for vacatur.
Consider the California case of Ardalan vs. Macy’s, Inc.203 This case involved a
claimant’s motion to vacate following a losing arbitration. The arbitration between
the parties was heard over nine hearing days, and the arbitrator issued a “lengthy”
22-page award.204 The claimant/plaintiff made several arguments in the case falling
under many of the grounds listed under Sect. 10 (a). The court easily dismissed the
claim under Sect. 10 (a) (1) for fraud under the “clear and convincing” burden of
proof.205 After dismissing the argument under Sect. 10 (a) (1), the arbitrator consid-
ered the claim under Sect. 10 (a) (2). Although the court did not vacate the arbitra-
tion award, the court applied a very different standard of review. When considering
if the award should be vacated based on an arbitrator’s bias, the court only required
a “reasonable impression” of bias—a far lower standard than “clear and convinc-
ing” evidence of bias.206 Because the plaintiff could not show bias even under the
lower standard, the court upheld the award.207 The court did not make any distinc-
tions among the standards, but simply applied different standards to the different
grounds for review.
Similarly, in Urban Associates, Inc. vs. Standard Electronics, Inc,208 the East-
ern District of Michigan ruled under a very similar standard of vacatur under
Sect. 10 (a) (2). The case involved a breakdown of a long-term arrangement be-
tween the two companies and resulting commissions due under various contracts.
The parties agreed to arbitrate shortly before trial, and participated in a lengthy ar-
bitration process including extensive pre-hearing motions and briefing.209 The losing
party sought to vacate the award based on any number of grounds, including Sect. 10
(a) (2).210 The court’s test under that section was whether a party could present evi-
dence showing that “a reasonable person would have to conclude that an arbitrator
was partial to the other party to the arbitration.”211 The types of evidence the court
sought consisted primarily of undisclosed relationships with the parties that would
203
2012 WL 25,03972 (N.D. Cal. June 28, 2012).
204
Id. at *1.
205
Id. at *2–3 (citing the heightened standard of review and then finding the award did not evi-
dence any corruption, fraud, or undue means).
206
Id. at *3 (“[Plaintiff] must show that specific facts create a reasonable impression of bias”).
207
Id. at *4.
208
2012 WL 10,79723 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 17, 2012).
209
Id. at *6–8. Prior to the arbitration, the court ruled on summary judgment motions that was later
appealed to the Sixth Circuit. Id.
210
The plaintiff did not move for vacatur under Sect. 10 (a)(1).
211
Urban Assoc., Inc., 2012 WL 1079723, at *10 (quoting Uhl vs. Komatsu Forklift Co., 512 F.3d
294, 306–07 (6th Cir. 2003)).
278 K. M. Blankley
have created an impression of bias.212 In this case, the plaintiff’s only evidence of
bias was a series of rulings against the party—which was utterly insufficient.213 As
with the California court, the Michigan court here did not require any heightened
burden of proof. The plaintiff was only to provide “evidence,” not “clear and con-
vincing evidence” or any other heightened standard of evidence to prove evident
partiality under Sect. 10 (a) (2).
These two cases are typical of cases decided under Sect. 10 (a) (2). Many other
courts apply this very standard as well.214 These cases demonstrate a very differ-
ent standard between Sect. 10 (a) (2) and Sect. 10 (a) (1), despite the fact that the
statute specifies no specific standard of review—much less different standards of
review for different sections. Under Sect. 10 (a) (2), the courts simply require that
the party seeking vacatur provide evidence (or reasonable evidence) that the statute
is satisfied. This standard is significantly less burdensome than a “clear and con-
vincing” evidentiary burden. The lower standard is sufficient to satisfy the goals of
arbitration (such as finality and contractual intent) without creating an artificially
high burden of proof.
Courts State no Specific Burden Under Sect. 10 (a) (3) but Simply Consider
Whether Parties Present Evidence Meeting the Narrow Grounds for Vacatur
Section 10 (a) (3) of the FAA allows a court to vacate an arbitration award if the
arbitrator’s conduct deprives a party of a fair hearing. The statute specifically men-
tions arbitrator misconduct such as failure to postpone reasonable requests for hear-
ings and failure to admit evidence, provided the party alleging the wrongdoing can
show prejudice.215 Again, the statute mentions no specific evidentiary burden of
212
Typically, the types of information that would create bias would be personal or financial rela-
tionships between the arbitrator and one of the parties, witnesses, or counsel.
213
Id. at *10 (“The fact that the majority arbitrators ruled against plaintiff, even repeatedly, does
not establish improper motives and thus provides no evidence of evident partiality”).
214
See, e.g., Freedom Investors Corp. vs. Hadath, 2012 WL 383944, at *4 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 7, 2012)
(“An arbitrator is disqualified only when a reasonable person, considering all of the circumstances,
would have to conclude that an arbitrator was partial to one side”); Cont’l Cas. Co. vs. Staffing
Concepts, Inc., 2001 WL 7459781 (M.D. Fla. Dec. 20, 2011) (requiring evidence of an undisclosed
conflict of interest or an actual conflict of interest); Nw. Direct Teleservices, Inc. vs. Zweizig, 2011
WL 7331297 (D. Or. Nov. 18, 2011) (“To show evident partiality in an arbitrator, a party either
must establish specific facts indicating actual bias toward or against a party or show the arbitrator
failed to disclose to the parties information that creates a reasonable impression of bias”) (internal
quotation marks and citation omitted); Vinco Painting, Inc. vs. Painters Dist. Counsel No. 30, 2010
WL 28,91685 (N.D. Ill. July 19, 2012) (“[E]vident partiality” exists where a “reasonable person
would… conclude that an arbitrator was partial”) (citation omitted). These are a mere sampling of
recent cases ruling on the issue of evident partiality.
215
Section 10 (a)(3) allows vacation “where the arbitrators were guilty of misconduct in refusing
to postpone the hearing, upon sufficient cause shown, or in refusing to hear evidence pertinent
and material to the controversy; or of any other misbehavior by which the rights of any party have
been prejudiced.”
proof before this standard is available to the parties. As demonstrated in the cases
below, the courts have not applied a higher burden to cases under Sect. 10 (a) (3),
even though they do require such a burden under Sect. 10 (a) (1).
The Texas case of MPJ vs. Aero Sky, L.L.C.216 examined the standard set forth
under Sect. 10 (a) (3) for procedural fairness. The underlying contract called for
Aero Sky to perform certain maintenance on MPJ airplanes, and a dispute arose
regarding certain scheduled maintenance.217 The arbitrator awarded more than
US $ 450, 000 in damages to MPJ.218 MPJ moved to confirm the award,219 and Aero
Sky moved to vacate the award on multiple grounds. Aero Sky moved for vacatur
under Sect. 10 (a) (1) based on the alleged misconduct of one of MPJ’s principals.
The court rejected the argument, finding that Aero Sky could not, among other
things, meet the “clear and convincing” evidentiary burden.220 Aero Sky also ar-
gued that the arbitrator prohibited it from providing certain evidence, thus requiring
vacatur under Sect. 10 (a) (3).221 The court articulated the standard for vacatur as
follows: “To constitute misconduct requiring vacation of an award, an error in the
arbitrator’s determination must be simply not an error of law, but which so affects
the rights of a party that it may be said that he was deprived a fair hearing.”222 Al-
though this standard is narrow, the court does not impose any increased evidentiary
burden on the party requesting vacatur—such as a “clear and convincing” burden.
The court ultimately concluded that Aero Sky could not meet the “extraordinarily
narrow” grounds for review.223 Again, this case demonstrates the differing eviden-
tiary burdens required by parties seeking vacatur under different sections of the
FAA without any discussion or rationale as to how two standards under the same
statute with no guidance at all on the evidentiary burden of the parties apply vastly
different burdens for different sections.
The New York case of In re Arbitration Before New York Stock Exchange224
also considered the Sect. 10 (a) (3) hearing. The case involved a dispute over who
should receive a stock dividend when the sale order came at roughly the same time
as the payment of a dividend. The investor received the dividend, and Merrill Lynch
initiated an arbitration in order to receive that dividend back. After an arbitration
hearing involving a significant amount of live testimony and attorney arguments,
216
673 F. Supp. 2d 475 (W.D. Tex. 2009).
217
Id. at 483.
218
Id. at 482.
219
MPJ moved to confirm the award under Sect. 9 of the FAA, which mandates that courts confirm
an arbitration award if it is not vacated or modified under Sects. 10 and 11 of the FAA. 9 U.S.C.
§ 9.
220
673 F. Supp. 2d at 494.
221
Id. at 498.
222
Id. (citing Laws vs. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, 452 F.3d 398, 399 (5th Cir. 2006)) (internal
quotation marks omitted).
223
Id. at 499.
224
2004 WL 2072460 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 5, 2004).
280 K. M. Blankley
the panel issued an award in favor of Merrill Lynch.225 The investor moved to va-
cate the award under multiple grounds. In discussing the fairness of the hearing
under Sect. 10 (a) (3), the court stated that “except where fundamental fairness is
violated, arbitration determinations will not be opened up to evidentiary review. A
fundamentally unfair proceeding may result if the arbitration panel does not give
each of the parties to the dispute an adequate opportunity to present its evidence
and argument.”226 In this case, the court considered the investor’s objection to the
recall of a key witness, but ultimately determined that the arbitration proceeding
was fundamentally fair.227 Again, the court did not require any heightened burden,
just a showing of specific facts that would establish a party’s inability to present its
own argument and evidence. Other cases impose very similar burdens for this sec-
tion of the FAA.228
Although the grounds for vacatur under Sect. 10 (a) (3) are narrow, the burden
of proof appears to be one of de novo review, with the reviewing court, in the first
instance, determining whether the plaintiff has evidence to support the ground for
vacatur. In this instance, the court seeks to determine whether the arbitrator ad-
mitted all of the material evidence and gave the parties equal time to put on their
proofs. The parties are not required to show these types of misconduct by clear and
convincing evidence—they only need to show the misconduct with evidence. Like
Sect. 10 (a) (2), the burden of proof under Sect. 10 (a) (3) is significantly lower and
not the heightened burden of clear and convincing evidence now required under
Sect. 10 (a) (1).
Section 10 (a) (4) Similarly Contains No Burden of Proof

and Courts Review These Cases on a De Novo Basis
The final statutory grounds for relief is found in Sect. 10 (a) (4), which allows for
vacatur if the arbitrators “exceeded their powers.”229 As noted above, arbitration is
a creature of contract, and all arbitrators acquire their powers to resolve the dispute
225
Id. at *4.
226
Id. at *10 (citing Tempo Shane Corp. vs. Bertek, Inc., 120 F.3d 16, 20 (2d Cir. 1997) (internal
quotation marks omitted).
227
Id. at *10–11.
228
See, e.g., Stone v. Bear, Sterns & Co., ___ F. Supp. 2d ___, 2012 WL 1946938, at *13 (E.D.
Pa. May 29, 2012) (requiring a plaintiff to show that the aggrieved party did not receive a “funda-
mentally fair” hearing); New York City Dist. Council of Carpenters vs. Dufour Grp. Inc., 2012 WL
13,72122 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 19, 2012) (requiring vacatur if the proceeding is “fundamentally unfair”);
Bajaj vs. Fisher Asset Mgmt., L.L.C., 2012 WL 1293169 (D. Del. Apr. 10, 2012) (granting vacatur
only if the evidence not allowed in the hearing deprives the complaining party of a “fair hearing”);
Wells Fargo Advisors, L.L.C. vs. Watts, ___ F. Supp. 2d ___, 2012 WL 831878 (W.D.N.C. Mar. 12,
2012) (refusing to vacate because the plaintiff could not show any “gross misconduct” with respect
to evidentiary and other procedural issues).
229
9 U.S.C. § 10 (a) (4).
from the agreement to arbitrate. Because arbitration is a contractual agreement, ar-

bitrators can only resolve the claims the parties agreed to submit to the process. Par-
ties are not required to submit to arbitration anything that they did not so agree.230
Thus, Sect. 10 (a) (4) protects the parties’ agreements to arbitrate and courts can
award vacatur if the arbitrators go beyond the powers given to them by contract.
Of all of the Sect. 10 (a) grounds for vacatur, review for “exceeding authority”
is considered the most generous review afforded to the parties, likely because of the
flexibility and “wiggle room” within the text of the statute. Even this ground for
review is limited, however, and few courts actually overturn awards on this basis.231
The following cases illustrate the operation of Sect. 10 (a) (4).
In 2010, the US Supreme Court discussed the operation of Sect. 10 (a) (4) in an
unlikely situation—the discussion of class action status. A little background on this
case is helpful. Over the last few decades, many large companies began using arbi-
tration agreements in their consumer agreements for products such as credit cards,
cellular telephones, and mortgages.232 Questions arose regarding the operation of
class actions within the world of arbitration. The Supreme Court first addressed
the issue of class action arbitrations in the 2003 case of Bazzle vs. Green Tree.233
The plurality opinion in Bazzle found that arbitrators, not courts, should determine
the suitability of class actions based on the contract language.234 Following Bazzle,
the AAA and other arbitral providers began providing class arbitration services in
which the arbitrators, following Bazzle, would determine if the contract language
allowed for a class procedure. Indeed, most arbitrators who ruled on the issue found
that a contract that was “silent” as to class actions (i.e, neither prohibited nor explic-
itly permitted class actions) were still suitable for class procedures.235
The Stolt-Nielsen case arose from this newly created system. The Stolt-Nielsen
parties were sophisticated businesses who contracted to rent certain space on a ves-
230
See, e.g., First Options of Chi., Inc. vs. Kaplan, 514 U.S. 938 (1995) (holding that a party who
did not sign an arbitration agreement did not have to arbitrate the dispute because the evidence did
not show that the party who did not sign the agreement had actually agreed to arbitrate the matter
in dispute).
231
Harper Ins. Ltd. vs. Century Indem. Co., 819 F. Supp. 2d 270, 276 (S.D.N.Y. 2011) (“The Sec-
ond Circuit has consistently accorded the narrowest readings to the FAA’s authorization to vacate
awards pursuant to § 10(a)(4)”) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
232
New research suggests that fewer companies use widespread arbitration agreements in consum-
er contracts than originally suggested. See Peter B. Rutledge & Christopher R. Drahozal, Contract
and Choice, __ B.Y.U.L.R. ___ (2012) (finding that arbitration agreements are not as widespread
in consumer contracts as the literature suggests and finding that many businesses use arbitration in
their business-to-business contracts).
233
Green Tree Fin. Corp. vs. Bazzle, 539 U.S. 444 (2003).
234
Id. In Bazzle, the South Carolina courts, not the arbitrators, decided that class status was ap-
propriate. The Court reversed for the arbitrators to make this determination in the first instance.
235
Stolt-Nielsen, S.A, 130 S. Ct. at 1770.
282 K. M. Blankley
sel for the transportation of liquids.236 A large number of companies who contracted
to ship relatively small amounts of liquids instituted an arbitration against the vessel
as a class action. The arbitrator held that the contract language was broad enough to
support a class action, falling in line with a long line of similar arbitration awards
in a wide variety of situations.237 The Supreme Court held that the arbitrators erred
in the class action ruling because the arbitrators “exceeded their powers” under
Sect. 10 (a) (4). The Court reiterated how arbitration is a matter of contract and that
the parties can choose how they want to arbitrate and with whom they choose to
arbitrate. The Court concluded that “it follows that a party may not be compelled
under the FAA to submit to class arbitration unless there is a contractual basis for
concluding that the parties agreed to do so.”238 Ultimately, the Court concluded that
the nature of bilateral (i.e., two party) arbitration was so incredibly different from
the nature of multiparty arbitration (including class arbitration), that an agreement
to arbitrate bilaterally does not, on its own, imply a right to proceed in a class ar-
bitration.239 Thus, a truly “silent” agreement on the issue of class action arbitration
cannot, under Sect. 10 (a) (4), be read to include class arbitration.
Although this recent holding invokes Sect. 10 (a) (4), the Court did nothing to
explain the contours of this section and how a litigant would prove that an arbitrator
exceeded powers under the section. Despite the Court’s lack of guidance, the Court
did not employ any type of heightened evidentiary standard or require that the plain-
tiffs establish meeting the standard by clear and convincing evidence or any other
heightened standard. Accordingly, no such heightened pleading standard seems to
exist under Sect. 10 (a) (4), while such a standard does exist under Sect. 10(a)(1).
Similar cases demonstrate that no heightened evidentiary standard exists under this
section.240
As these sections demonstrate, no other subsection of Sect. 10 (a) has been inter-
preted to have a heightened evidentiary burden similar to the one employed under
236
Id. at 1764–65.
237
The AAA published all documents in the class action docket. Something of an anomaly in
arbitration law, arbitrators in the class action docket could conduct an electronic search for similar
awards. Given the accessibility of awards by fellow arbitrators, a type of arbitral “common law”
began to develop in which the majority of “silent” arbitration awards were interpreted to support a
class action procedure. See Stolt-Nielsen, S.A, 130 S. Ct. at 1176.
238
Id. at 1775 (emphasis in original).
239
Id. at 1775–76.
240
See, e.g., Agility Pub. Warehousing Co. K.S.C. vs. Supreme Foodservice GmbH, ___ F. Supp. 2d
___ (S.D.N.Y. 2011) (citing Stolt-Nielsen and not applying any particular burden of proof with re-
spect to the claim under Sect. 10 (a) (4)); S. Comm. Servs., Inc. vs. Thomas, 829 F. Supp. 2d 1324
(N.D. Ga. 2011) (post-Stolt-Nielsen case finding that the arbitrator did not exceed powers in inter-
preting the law and the parties’ contract to find that a cellular telephone agreement permitted class
action relief); Morgan Keegan & Co. vs. Garrett, 816 F. Supp. 2d 439 (S.D. Tex. 2011) (vacating
award on the basis of exceeding powers because an arbitrator heard claims by parties not subject
to the arbitration agreement as well as claims not covered by the arbitration agreement and apply-
ing no particular burden in conducting this analysis); Priority One Servs., Inc. vs. W & T Travel
Servs., L.L.C., 825 F. Supp. 2d 43 (D.D.C. 2011) (analyzing the case under Sect. 10 (a)(4) without
applying any type of heightened evidentiary burden).
Sect. 10 (a) (1). No good reason exists for the heightened burden as to cases in-
volving allegations of fraudulent conduct when all of the other narrow grounds for
vacatur are examined on a de novo basis. This chapter recommends putting Sect. 10
(a) (1) back in line with the other statutory grounds for vacatur and eliminating the
heightened evidentiary burden for vacatur. The following two sections consider the
burdens of proof for vacatur under the two non-statutory grounds of review, that is,
for manifest disregard and vacatur for being contrary to public policy.
The “Manifest Disregard” Standard of Vacatur, to the Extent it

is Still a Viable Source of Review, Requires a Simple Evidentiary
Standard
Although the viability of the “manifest disregard” standard of vacatur is currently

in flux, when applied, the courts do not require a heightened evidentiary standard
similar to the grounds for review under Sect. 10 (a) (1). Instead, they apply a rather
standard, two-part test with no discussion regarding the evidentiary burden on the
part of the party seeking vacatur. The court looks at the “exceedingly narrow” cir-
cumstances in which an arbitrator “knew the relevant legal position” and appreci-
ated its applicability, yet still “willfully flouted the governing law by refusing to
apply it.”241 Although this grounds for review is narrow, the courts do not require a
heightened burden of proof before the court to vacate an award.
The following case illustrates the difference between the narrowness of the
grounds and the evidentiary burden in this context. In Rame, LLC vs. Popovich,242
an arbitrator determined that claimants could proceed as a class in a suit against
their employer. The employer moved to vacate the opinion on multiple grounds,
including the grounds that the arbitrator acted in manifest disregard of the law—
particularly the Stolt-Nielsen decision. The court noted that the Second Circuit rec-
ognized the continuing validity of the “manifest disregard” standard as a “judicial
gloss” on the FAA and thus survives Hall Street.243 With respect to the standard of
review for this standard, the court noted:
“[A]wards are vacated on grounds of manifest disregard only in those exceedingly rare
instances where some egregious impropriety on the part of the arbitrator is apparent.” Such
impropriety requires “more than error or misunderstanding with respect to the law, or an
arguable difference regarding the meaning or applicability of law urged upon an arbitra-
tor.” The two part showing requires the court to consider, first, “whether the governing law
alleged to have been ignored by the arbitrator was well defined, explicit, and clearly appli-
cable,” and, second, “whether the arbitrator knew about the existence of a clearly governing
legal principle but decided to ignore it or pay no attention to it.”244
241
Langlais vs. PennMont Ben. Servs., Inc., 2012 WL 2849414, at *3 (E.D. Pa. July 11, 2012)
(citations omitted).
242
878 F. Supp. 2d 439, 2012 WL 2719159 (S.D.N.Y. July 9, 2012).
243
Id. at *4.
244
Id. (citations omitted).
284 K. M. Blankley
In this case, the court found that the party seeking vacatur could not meet this nar-
row test. The arbitrator in this case considered over eighty pages of legal memoran-
da regarding the availability of class action arbitration following the Stolt-Nielsen
decision and distinguishing this case from the Supreme Court precedent.245 Accord-
ingly, the court did not overturn the arbitrator’s reasoned decision that considered
and addressed all of the proper legal issues.
The Rame decision illustrates how even a grounds for review described as suc-
cessful in the “exceedingly rare” circumstance still has a lower burden of proof than
seeking vacatur under Sect. 10 (a) (4). Indeed, following the Stolt-Nielsen decision,
many courts interpreted that decision as meaning that all clauses that did not spe-
cifically allow class arbitration could not support a class action procedure. Here,
this arbitrator found a way to distinguish this Supreme Court precedent, despite the
factual similarities in the two cases. Although the decision was upheld, the court
only required that the moving party establish that the arbitrator knew what the law
was and that the arbitrator disregarded the law. The court did not require that either
of these elements be proven by a standard other than a preponderance, or de novo
standard, unlike the “clear and convincing” burden required under Sect. 10 (a) (1).
Similar cases demonstrate that no special evidentiary burden must be proven to suc-
ceed on a claim under the “manifest disregard” standard.246
Review for Violation of Public Policy Similarly Does Not Require

a Heightened Evidentiary Burden
The final widely recognized ground for review is if the award would be contrary
to public policy. As with the other grounds for review noted above, the review for
being contrary to public policy is a narrow ground for review, but the movant need
not prove entitlement to vacatur by any higher standard than a preponderance of the
evidence. The courts follow a rather simple test without requiring a higher eviden-
tiary burden of proof.
Most commonly, awards will be vacated on the grounds of violation of public
policy when an award requires a party to do something other than pay money. As
noted above, certain types of reinstatements can be subject to vacatur on public
policy grounds, especially if an arbitrator reinstates an employee with a history of
substance abuse to a position involving public health and safety, such as a pilot or
bus driver. Unsurprisingly, most awards challenged on public policy grounds stem
Id. at *13.
245
See Langlais, 2012 WL 2849414, at *3 (applying two-part test without any discussion of the
246
burden of proof); Ardalan vs. Macy’s Inc., 2012 WL 2503972, at *6 (N.D. Cal. June 28, 2012)
(same); Williams vs. Nat’l Football League, 2012 WL 2366636, at *7 (D. Colo. June 21, 2012)
(same).
from labor and employment arbitrations. The following cases demonstrate the op-
eration of this ground for vacatur.
For instance, in Crozer-Chester Medical Center vs. Crozer-Chester Nurses
Association,247 the arbitrator awarded reinstatement for a nurse, finding that her
workplace infraction did not warrant termination.248 The nurse improperly con-
nected electronic monitoring equipment to a patient such that the patient’s vital
signs were not being recorded, and no one was alerted when the patient died.249 The
nurse had previously received discipline on a number of occasions, so the employer
terminated her employment following this incident. The nurse followed the griev-
ance procedure, which eventually led to arbitration of the dispute over the nurse’s
discipline. The court noted that the standard for vacating an award for a violation
of public policy is if the award “violates a well defined and dominant public policy
discernible by reference to the laws and legal precedents and not from general con-
siderations of supposed public interest.”250 The arbitrator based the award on the
principles of progressive discipline and the fact that a failure to properly use the
monitoring equipment did not appear on the employer’s own list of “immediate ter-
mination” actions.251 Given the arbitrator’s careful consideration of the arguments
and evidence, the court confirmed the award. This case, like the others discussed
above, demonstrates that courts do not apply a higher burden of proof for any other
grounds for vacatur other than under Sect. 10 (a) (1).
In Williams vs. National Football League,252 the plaintiff player received a
6-game suspension after the plaintiff’s urine drug test uncovered that the player’s
urine was tampered with and not, in fact, human urine.253 The plaintiff appealed the
suspension, and an arbitrator heard the case. Ultimately, the arbitrator upheld the
plaintiff’s suspension.254 At the arbitration, the plaintiff established some irregular-
ity with the collection and testing of the sample, but the arbitrator determined that
any irregularities did not interfere with the correct test results.255 The plaintiff chal-
lenged the award on multiple grounds, including a violation of public policy. With
respect to the public policy argument, the plaintiff argued that the arbitration award
contravened the “established laws of the international sports community and the
247
2012 WL 25,00930 (E.D. Pa. June 29, 2012).
248
Id. at *2.
249
Id. at *1.
250
Id. at *5 (internal quotations and citations omitted).
251
Id.
252
Williams, 2012 WL 2366636 (D. Colo. June 21, 2012).
253
Id. at 1.
254
Id.
255
Id. at *3 (noting how the arbitrator was troubled by the procedures followed in the arbitration,
but that “the deviations from established protocol in this case did not materially affect the validity
of the test”).
286 K. M. Blankley
public policy underlying those laws.”256 In evaluating this argument, the court ap-
plied the following standard: “[F]or a court to determine that an award contravenes
public policy, the policy must be well defined and dominant, and is to be ascertained
by reference to the laws and legal precedents and not from general considerations
of supposed public interests.”257 The plaintiff argued that precedent from the Court
of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) established something of a “strict liability” for drug
cases involving tampered samples. The plaintiff also noted that, on one occasion,
Major League Baseball vacated a 50-game suspension because of a tampered urine
sample.258 Despite this “precedent,” the court still upheld the arbitration award on
the basis that the law cited by the plaintiff was not clearly established enough to
warrant vacatur. Pointing to a single MLB example and a questionable line of prec-
edent by CAS was simply not enough. Here, the court employed a narrow, difficult-
to-establish standard, but the court did not require any type of increased burden of
proof for the plaintiff to establish entitlement to vacatur. Other cases follow suit.259
Thus, these cases fall in line with the long line of cases that do not require a height-
ened standard unless the movant brings the case under Sect. 10 (a) (1). In other
words, only Sect. 10 (a) (1) for fraud has a heightened burden of proof.
The Common Law Should Eliminate the “Clear and Convincing”

Standard Under Sect. 10 (a) (1)
As the preceding sections demonstrate, all of the grounds for vacating an arbitration
award are considerably narrow and hard to establish. In practice, most arbitration
awards are confirmed, and few awards are vacated. Section 10 (a) (1), however,
stands alone in adding a “clear and convincing” burden of proof upon an already
narrow test to meet for vacating an arbitration award. This elevated burden of proof
evolved through the common law, and the common law should now reverse course
and eliminate this requirement.
No legitimate reason exists for the heightened evidentiary standard. Section
10 (a) makes no mention of evidentiary burdens of proof, and none of the other
grounds for review have a heightened burden of proof. The common law grounds
256
Id. at *6.
257
Id. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
258
Id. The case involving the vacated suspension involved the steroid scandal of Ryan Braun.
259
Bradford vs. Union Pac. R. Co., ___ F. Supp. 2d ___, 2012 WL 1969319 (D. Ariz. June 1, 2012)
(requiring public policy to be well established, but not requiring any type of heightened eviden-
tiary standard); Zoom Elec., Inc. vs. Int’l Broth. Of Elec. Workers, Local 595, 2012 WL 951778, at
*6 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 20, 2012) (“Similarly, to vacate an arbitration award on public policy grounds,
a court must find: (1) that an explicit, well-defined and dominant public policy exists, and (2) that
the policy is one that specifically militates against the relief ordered by the arbitrator”) (internal
quotation marks and citations omitted); Chi. Bears Football Club, Inc. vs. Haynes, 816 F. Supp. 2d
534, 537 (N.D. Ill. 2011) (noting that the standard to vacate for public policy reasons is narrow, but
saying nothing with respect to the burden of proof of showing that the party meets the standard).
for review, too, do not require a heightened evidentiary burden. In other words,
Sect. 10 (a) (1) is an anomaly.
No legitimate reason exists for this anomaly. All four subparts of Sect. 10 (a) (as
well as the common law grounds for vacatur) deal with misconduct of some type,
and Sect. 10 (a) (1) is the only subsection that even arguably applies to participant
conduct, as opposed to arbitrator misconduct. From a statutory interpretation stand-
point, no reason exists to add a heightened burden of proof to one subsection and
not the rest. In fact, the rules of statutory interpretation would counsel courts to treat
all of the subsections the same. By adding a heightened burden of proof to Sect. 10
(a) (1) and not any of the other subsections of Sect. 10 (a), the courts are effectively
re-writing the statute and adding words to the statute that clearly are not there. The
way to correct this problem would be simply to eliminate the heightened burden and
treat all of the subsections in a similar manner.
In addition, arbitrator misconduct is not dissimilar from participant (mis)con-
duct such that policy would require a different evidentiary standard for participant
misconduct but not arbitrator misconduct. Whether or not an arbitrator or other
participant commits the misconduct does not matter. In both situations, the victim
is harmed and the resulting award may be influenced by improper conduct. Also,
no matter who commits the misconduct, the arbitration process is tarnished and
the reputation of arbitration everywhere suffers. Participant misconduct should be
treated in a similar manner as arbitrator misconduct, and a party seeking vacatur of
an award for participant misconduct should not be held to a higher burden of proof.
Removing the heightened evidentiary standard to vacate an award for participant
misconduct would demonstrate that all misconduct should be handled in a similar
manner and that one type of misconduct (i.e., arbitrator misconduct) is not more
serious than another type (i.e., participant misconduct).
Removing the “clear and convincing” requirement would not make vacatur un-
der Sect. 10 (a) (1) any easier than any other standard of vacatur that already exists.
In other words, this minor modification would hardly “open the floodgates” for
lawsuits or for vacatur of arbitrator awards. Certainly, the finality of an arbitra-
tor’s decision would still be intact because proving a case of fraud—even without
the “clear and convincing” burden of proof—is still a difficult showing for a party
seeking vacatur. The party would still have to prove the other grounds for fraud,
including that the fraud was (1) not discoverable upon the exercise of due diligence
prior to the arbitration, and (2) materially related to an issue in the arbitration. The
waiver and materiality requirements would still exist under this proposal, and only
the burden of proof would change. Because of the slight modification suggested,
the grounds for review would still be narrow—similar to all of the other grounds for
vacatur, only Sect. 10 (a) (1) would not have a high burden of proof in addition to
the narrow circumstances under which vacatur can be obtained.
Perhaps most importantly, this change would further encourage ethical conduct
by arbitration participants. As it stands now, arbitration participants can essentially
engage in misconduct, provided that one party does not have “clear and convinc-
ing” evidence of that misconduct. The heightened pleading standard thus incentiv-
izes overly zealous behavior on the part of parties, witnesses and attorneys, further
288 K. M. Blankley
exacerbating the ethical loophole that already exists in the criminal law. Thus, this
chapter urges courts to abandon the requirement for “clear and convincing” evi-
dence for vacatur under Sect. 10 (a) (1) in order to encourage ethical conduct in the
arbitration process.
Conclusion
The application of ethical rules to the arbitral process over the last century has
been piecemeal, at best. As this chapter demonstrates, serious loopholes exist in
arbitration’s structure as a conflict resolution mechanism, with few enforcement
opportunities. Two of the most serious loopholes dealing with participant miscon-
duct include the inapplicability of criminal laws to arbitration participants as well
as the heightened burden of proof required to vacate an award that was procured by
participant fraud.
This Chapter recommends two changes that would have a large impact on arbi-
tration ethics and thereby improve the wellbeing of all parties involved. The first
change would be to modify the criminal law such that the definition of “official
proceedings” would include binding arbitration. This small change would make
all of the criminal laws dealing with official proceedings, such as perjury, tamper-
ing, bribery, and others, applicable to the arbitral forum. The second change would
be to eliminate the “clear and convincing” burden of proof for motions to vacate
under Sect. 10 (a) (1) for fraud. No legitimate reason exists to single out fraudulent
conduct for more stringent review compared to all of the other grounds for vacatur.
Eliminating the higher burden of proof would further encourage ethical conduct in
arbitration and promote justice by providing relief for parties who have suffered
mistreatment or abuse because of misconduct by an arbitration participant.
While these two changes appear relatively minor, they would potentially have a
large impact on arbitration ethics. These changes would clearly articulate that un-
ethical conduct will not be tolerated in the arbitral forum, and that if parties were to
act in an unethical manner, criminal sanctions and vacatur of arbitral awards could
result as consequence. These changes would also signal to arbitration participants,
and the world, that arbitration is a fair and just process for dispute resolution.
Chapter 11
Retired to Greener Pastures: The Public Costs
of Private Judging
Maureen A. Weston
The Public Justice System
The US Constitution establishes the framework for the operation of public gov-
ernmental authority and the protection of rights in the country.1 Under this federal-
ist system of government, law is established and enforced through representatives
of the federal government, as empowered and circumscribed in the Constitution,
and otherwise by individual state governments. At both the state and federal lev-
els, powers are separated among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches
of government—in order to ensure a balance of power and function, as well as
independence of the judiciary.2 The Constitution also accords the right to access
the public justice system, which guarantees citizens certain due process protections
including the right to have a case heard by a judge or jury, proceedings open to the
public, rules of procedure and evidence, as well as rights to present and confront
witnesses, to a reasoned decision, and to appellate review.3 The trial process is a
formal hearing, presided over by a public judge who decides the case on the basis
1
US Const. art. I–III.
2
The separation of powers doctrine balances the legislature’s constitutional power to determine
public policy, the judiciary’s inherent power over its own proceedings, and the executive branch’s
enforcement powers, and precludes undue interference by one of the other branches into the au-
thority of the other two branches. See John F. Manning, Separation of Powers As Ordinary Inter-
pretation, 124 Harv. L. Rev. 1939 (2011).
3
It is axiomatic that “[a] fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process.” Caperton
v. Massey, 129 S. Ct. 2252, 2264 (2009) (citing In re Murchison, 349 U.S. 133 (1955).
The author would like to thank participants and organizers of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Conference on Justice, Conflict, and Well-Being and Pepperdine law student Jeff Salvesen for his
helpful research assistance.
M. A. Weston ()
School of Law, Pepperdine University, 24255 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, CA 90263, USA
e-mail: Maureen.Weston@pepperdine.edu
290 M. A. Weston
of law.4 The public justice forum also entitles parties to the discovery of relevant
information and the joinder of claims and parties, including the right to bring cases
in a representative capacity in the form of a class action.5
The public court system is designed to provide a forum for a fair trial that vin-
dicates rights, and is integral enough to our democracy to be publicly funded. As
public institutions, courts serve an important public function in preserving the rule
of law as needed for a just and ordered society. Judges, as public officials, provide
a central role in the protections of the public justice system.6 Despite procedural
protections designed to ensure fairness and access to information, the public court
system is under attack and criticized for its delay, clogged dockets, and costs.7 Ac-
cording to Chief Justice Roberts in his 2011 Year-End Report on the Federal Judi-
ciary, judges, who serve as guardians to this public justice system, are underpaid,
overworked, and increasingly migrating to the greener pastures of private industry
and private judging.8
Mechanisms for the private resolution of disputes have evolved and taken root
since the early 1980s as alternatives to address the costs, delays, and uncertainties of
the public justice system.9 The “Alternative Dispute Resolution” Movement (ADR)
has brought processes for private justice and dispute resolution to mainstream use.
Arbitration and mediation are the most common forms of ADR, although ADR can
encompass a variety of mixed and customized processes.10 Arbitration is a private
adjudicative process where the parties select the arbitrator to render a final and
binding award.11 Mediation is an informal, consensual process where a mediator, as
4
Owen Fiss, Against Settlement, 93 Yale L. J. 1073, 1090 (1984) (“[A]djudication uses public
resources, and employs not strangers chosen by the parties but public officials chosen by a process
in which the public participates. These officials, like members of the legislative and executive
branches, possess a power that has been defined and conferred by public law, not by private agree-
ment. Their job is not to maximize the ends of private parties, not simply to secure the peace, but to
explicate and give force to the values embodied in authoritative texts such as the Constitution and
statutes: to interpret those values and to bring reality into accord with them….”).
5
See, e.g., Fed. R. Civ. P. 1, 18, 26, 23.
6
See Richard A. Posner, The Role of the Judge in the Twenty-First Century, 86 B.U. L. Rev. 1049
(2006); Fiss, supra note 4, at 1084 (emphasizing the “guiding presence of the judge” in balancing
disparities in power and guarding the fairness).
7
Charles Silver, Symposium: What We Know and Do Not Know About the Impact of Civil Justice
on the American Economy and Policy: Does Civil Justice Cost Too Much?, 80 Tex. L. Rev. 2073,
2103–2104 (2002) (reporting on the increase in private ADR caseloads and private arbitration
providers).
8
Id. See also U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, 2011 Year End Report on the Federal Judiciary
(Dec. 31, 2011),
http://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/year-end/year-endreports.aspx.
9
For a description of the history and uses of ADR, see 1 Alternative Dispute Resolution Practice
Guide § 1:1.
10
Med-arb, arbitration-mediation, mini-trial, early neutral evaluation, ombuds. See 1 Litigating
Tort Cases § 11:75.
11
See Carrie J. Menkel-Meadow, Ethics Issues in Arbitration and Related Dispute Resolution
Processes: What’s Happening and What’s Not, 56 U. Miami L. Rev. 949 (2002) (defining arbitra-
11 Retired to Greener Pastures: The Public Costs of Private Judging 291
a neutral third party, facilitates the parties in attempting to reach a negotiated resolu-
tion. Parties to mediation also typically select and hire the mediator. Although ADR
processes are generally conducted completely outside the court system and pursuant
to a contractual provision, courts are also embracing ADR by referring, and at times
ordering, parties in litigated cases to seek resolution via a private ADR process.12
Increasingly, private mediators and arbitrators are commissioned to administer jus-
tice in public and privately filed cases.
Speed, efficiency, lower costs, party control, and finality are the lauded hallmarks
of ADR processes.13 While those features are increasingly questioned as arbitration
in particular becomes more formalized and characterized as “the new litigation,”
the market for ADR services continues to grow.14 Although arbitration has been
used for centuries in specialized commercial industries, arbitration provisions have
now become standard features of commercial and consumer contracts in the USA.15
This “alternative” private means for resolving disputes differs significantly from
the public courts. Agreements to arbitrate are enforceable under state and federal
law.16 The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) provides for the enforcement of agreements
to arbitrate and is the source of substantial power preempting state initiatives that
may seek to regulate arbitration in the interests of protecting consumers and the pub-
lic.17 Regarding the FAA as federal policy favoring arbitration, the US Supreme Court
has held that the enforceability of arbitration agreements extends to federal and state
statutory claims and applies to all contracts involving interstate commerce, including
consumer and employment.18 Arbitration contracts can even be enforced when writ-
ten to deny consumers or employees from seeking collective relief, such as in a class
action, in court or in arbitration. In AT&T v. Concepcion, the Court held that the FAA’s
mandate to enforce arbitration contracts as written preempts state law which invali-
tion as “[u]sually (but not always) a private process of adjudication in which the parties in dispute
with each other choose decision-makers (sometimes one, often a panel of three) and the rules of
procedure, evidence, and decision by which their disputes will be settled”).
12
See Donna Shestowsky, Disputants’ Preferences for Court-Connected Dispute Resolution Pro-
cedures: Why We Should Care and Why We Know So Little, 23 Ohio St. J. on Disp. Resol. 549,
625 (2008).
13
See Allied-Bruce Terminix Cos. v. Dobson, 513 U.S. 265, 280 (1995) (“The advantages of ar-
bitration are many: it is usually cheaper and faster than litigation; it can have simpler procedural
and evidentiary rules; it normally minimizes hostility and is less disruptive of ongoing and future
business dealings among the parties….”).
14
See, e.g., Thomas J. Stipanowich, Arbitration: The “New Litigation,” 2010 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1 (2010).
15
See, e.g., Soia Mentschikoff, Commercial Arbitration, 61 Colum. L. Rev. 846 (1961) (describ-
ing historical use of arbitration in trade industries); Timothy F. McCurdy, The Doctor Will See You
Now (If You Signed the Arbitration Agreement), 65 J. Mo. B. 232 (2009).
16
See Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. § 2.
17
See, e.g., AT&T Mobility LLC, 131 S. Ct. 1740 (2011) (holding that the FAA preempted Cali-
fornia’s rule classifying most collective-arbitration waivers in consumer contracts as unconsciona-
ble); Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U.S. 1, 16 (1984) (by enacting the FAA, “Congress intended
to foreclose state legislative attempts to undercut the enforceability of arbitration agreements.”)
18
See e.g., Gilmer v. Interstate Johnson, 500 U.S. 20 (1991); Circuit City v. Adams, 532 U.S. 105
(2001).
292 M. A. Weston
dates such bans on class actions as unconscionable.19 Arbitration awards are final and
binding, subject to extremely narrow judicial review unrelated to the merits of the de-
cision.20 Thus, a party’s access to the public justice system may be displaced by virtue
of a simple declaration in any contract which provides for legal claims and disputes to
be brought to arbitration and, in effect, a waiver of rights to a judicial forum.21
ADR has become so widely used, promoted, and accepted as to spawn an entire
industry of private dispute resolution.22 This trend has created the professional op-
portunity for individuals to secure employment as “private judges” or neutrals, and
correspondingly, a market for private businesses to provide arbitration support and
administrative services (provider institutions).23
The phenomenon of the “vanishing trial” and steep reduction in the number of
civil trials is attributable not only to expensive trial costs and complexity, but also to
the diversion of cases to ADR.24 Given the opportunities for higher salaries and ca-
reer mobility in private dispute resolution, a considerable number of public judges
at the state and federal courts have opted to leave the bench and embark on a career
as a private neutral and to associate with one of the many private dispute resolution
provider companies or organizations, notably Judicial Arbitration and Mediation
Services (JAMS) or the American Arbitration Association (AAA), or simply to self-
administer a case as an arbitrator or neutral.25 News reports of public judges leaving
19
AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 131 S. Ct. 1740 (2011) (holding that the FAA preempted
California’s rule classifying most collective-arbitration waivers in consumer contracts as uncon-
scionable); Doctors’ Ass’n. v. Casarotto, 517 U.S. 681, 687 (1996); Allied-Bruce Terminix Cos. v.
Dobson, 513 U.S. 265, 281 (1995); Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U.S. at 8–9.
20
See Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. § 10 (enumerating a limited category of grounds upon
which a court may vacate an arbitral award, such as for fraud, arbitrator misconduct, or arbitrator
abuse of authority).
21
9 U.S.C. § 2 (providing for the enforcement of agreements to arbitrate).
22
Alternative Dispute Resolution, 2020, Hous. Law., at 37 (Sept./Oct. 2000). As stated by William
K. Slate, CEO and President, American Arbitration Association, the “[u]se of arbitration and, more
recently, mediation [has grown] by leaps and bounds….” American Arbitration Association, 2011
Presidents Letter and Financial Statements, http://www.adr.org/aaa/ShowProperty?nodeId=%2
FUCM%2FADRSTG_019403&revision=latestreleased.
23
See Maureen A. Weston, Reexamining Arbitral Immunity in an Age of Mandatory Arbitration
and Professional Arbitration, 88 Minn. L. Rev. 449 (2004) (noting that major provider institutions,
such as the American Arbitration Association (AAA), and Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Ser-
vices (JAMS), continue to report growth in caseload and neutral membership). See also infra Sect.
II.B. Obtaining an exact count or complete listing of the number of ADR or arbitration service
providers is difficult because no one place collects such information and many operate locally or
regionally. A link on the website for the American Bar Association, Section on Dispute Resolution
lists national ADR organizations. See American Bar Association, Links of Interest, http://www.
americanbar.org/groups/dispute_resolution/resources/links_of_interest.html; see e.g., Federal Ar-
bitraiton, Inc., (“FedArb’s former and retired federal judges will bring you the highest quality,
precedent-based, on-time arbitration decisions.”), http://www.fedarb.com/.
24
Mark Galanter, The Vanishing Trial: An Examination of Trials and Related Matters in State and
Federal Courts, 1 J. Empirical Legis. Stud. 459, 461 (2004). Criminal cases, by contrast, are on
the rise, and not referred to ADR involving a private third-party neutral.
25
Stephen B. Burbank, Jay S. Plager & Gregory Ablavsky, 1 Leaving the Bench, 1970–2009:
The Choices Federal Judges Make, What Influences Those Choices, and Their Consequences 12
(2012) [hereinafter Leaving the Bench].
the bench cite the lure of higher pay in the private ADR industry as a primary reason
for their departure.26 In short, private dispute resolution has become big business,
and judges are a valued asset.27
The trend to privatize justice and the loss of judges from the public court system
to the higher pay opportunities and flexibility in the private ADR industry raises
important concerns about the quality of justice, due process, and well-being of the
public justice system.28 This chapter explores the impact of this development—the
benefits and costs—on the access to quality and meaningful justice. Part II examines
the process for judicial selection and appointment, the role of the judge in a public
justice system, and the compensation packages typically offered to public judges,
while also reporting attrition and retirement from the bench. Part III considers the
reasons motivating public judges to leave the bench for work in the private ADR
sector and attendant effects on the public courts. While recognizing the benefits of
private dispute resolution, Part IV counsels for limitations on the marketing of one’s
status and service as a public judge while pursuing work as a paid private neutral and
proposes adoption of a canon of ethics for former judges serving as private arbitra-
tors and mediators. The chapter concludes with a call for increased public invest-
ment toward improvements in the public court system in order to renew the calling to
judicial service and to preserve a meaningful foundation of access to public justice.
The Role of the Judge in a Public Justice System
Function of the Judiciary
Selection, Retention, and Discipline
Article III, Sect. 1 of the US Constitution provides that “[t]he judicial Power of the
United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts
26
See Molly McDonough, NY Judge Quits for ADR Job, Cites Pay as Reason, ABA J., (Aug. 16,
2012) (reporting on a state court judge leaving a $ 168,600 annual income for a 17 % pay increase
to work for JAMS); http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/ny_judge_quits_for_adr_job_cites_
pay_as_reason/. See also Charisma L. Miller, Justice Ariel Belen to Leave Bench; Longtime Brook-
lyn Jurist Cites Pay Issue, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, (Aug. 16, 2012), available at http://www.brook-
lyneagle.com/articles/justice-ariel-belen-leave-bench-longtime-brooklyn-jurist-cites-pay-issue.
27
See supra note 21.
28
Public policy strongly favors the private negotiation and settlement of litigated disputes; how-
ever, the expectation that parties who submit their disputes to the courts, which are public institu-
tions funded by public resources and designed to serve a public function, must comport with the
standards of the judicial process, the needs of the rule of law, and orders of the court is equally
availing. Mark Thompson, Rented Justice, CAL. LAW., Mar. 1988, at 42 (noting that over 150
California judges had “gone private,” lured by the growing demand and good pay); Mark Dubois,
Private Judging, Private Justice, Conn. Law Tribune (Oct. 19, 2012) (expressing concerns about a
development of two systems of justice, notably private justice for the wealthy), available at http://
www.ctlawtribune.com/PubArticleCT.jsp?id=1202575677512.
294 M. A. Weston
as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.”29 Justices of the US
Supreme Court and judges of other Article III federal courts are appointed by the
President, with the advice and consent of the Senate.30 Article III judges are ap-
pointed for a life term, provided “good behavior,” and hold their seats until they
resign, die, or are removed from office.31 The purpose of lifetime tenure is to ensure
judicial independence.32 Selection of judges at the state court level depends on re-
spective state constitutions, which may provide either for (1) appointment by state
legislature or governor; (2) judges running for election; or (3) initial gubernatorial
appointment and then retention or rejection by voters.33
Federal judges are classified either as those who are in regular active service,
retired but in senior status, retired from the office, or former judges who have
resigned, relinquishing the office prior to eligibility for retirement.34 Active and
senior status judges are bound by the Code of Judicial Conduct and are therefore
prohibited from practicing law or serving as a private neutral for compensation.
Judges whose combination of age and years of service totals at least 80 are eligible
to retain senior status on the bench, a form of semi-retirement, or to retire fully. In
either case, judges who satisfy the “Rule of 80” receive a pension in the form of
an annuity equal to the judge’s salary at the time of retirement without that income
being subject to taxes for Social Security or Medicare. Congress enacted this op-
tion, known as the Rule of 80, in 1984 in an effort to retain experienced members
of the judiciary by broadening the availability of senior status judicial service for
retired federal judges.35 Senior status judges remain available for service on the
bench and subject to judicial ethics rules, whereas retired judges are free from
such prohibitions, including the prohibition against practicing law.36 Fully retired
judges, like judges who resign and relinquish office, are free to pursue outside
employment.
29
U.S. Const. art. III, § 1.
30
Id.
31
Id. Federal judges can be removed from office by impeachment but are subject to discipline in
less drastic ways by a committee of federal judges. Non-Article III judges—including US magis-
trate judges and judges of the US bankruptcy courts, US Tax Court, US Court of Federal Claims,
and US territorial courts—are appointed for specified terms of office.
32
Richard A. Posner, The Role of the Judge in the Twenty-First Century, 86 B.U. L. Rev. 1049
(2006) (noting that elected judges likely exhibit less political independence that the relative free-
dom of the federal judges, with lifetime tenure).
33
See Peter D. Webster, Selection and Retention of Judges: Is There One “Best” Method?, 23 Fla.
St. U. L. Rev. 1 (1995). http://media.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/issues/231/webster.html.
34
28 U.S.C. § 371(2012). Leaving the Bench, supra note 25, at 13.
35
Leaving the Bench, supra note 25, at 7. The Rule of 80 allows federal judges to retain senior
status or retire at or after age 65, provided the combination of his or her age and years of service
totals at least 80. Id.
36
28 U.S.C. § 371(e)(1). Senior status judges receive the “salary of the office,” including cost-of-
living-adjustments (COLAs) and any subsequent pay increases, provided they satisfy the service
requirements. See Leaving the Bench, supra note 25, at 61.
A similar structure operates at the state level, with the distinction that in some
states, retired judges are eligible to serve on an ad hoc basis for fill-in assignments,37
but otherwise are free to engage in private employment.38
Public Judges as Guardians of Justice
Judges play a central role as guardians of justice in the public legal system. Fore-
most, judges are impartial decision-makers. Judicial impartiality, fairness, and in-
dependence are fundamental to the assurance of Constitutional due process.39 These
principles are embedded in the Judicial Code which mandates the disqualification
of any federal court justice, judge, or magistrate judge “[i]n any proceeding in
which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”40 Disqualification is also
required where a judge:
1. [h]as a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of
disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding;
2. [i]n private practice [] served as lawyer in the matter in controversy…;
3. [h]as served in governmental employment and in such capacity participated as
counsel, adviser, or material witness concerning the proceeding or expressed an
opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy; or
4. [k]nows that he, individually or as a fiduciary, or his spouse or minor child resid-
ing in his household, has a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy
or in a party to the proceeding, or any other interest that could be substantially
affected by the outcome of the proceeding….41
Public judges are also held accountable to standards of ethical conduct in the per-
formance of their judicial roles. Federal judges are expected to abide by the Code of
Conduct for US Judges, a set of ethical principles and guidelines enacted by the Judi-
cial Conference, a policy-making organization of the federal judiciary headed by the
37
See Mark S. Hurwitz & Drew Noble Lanier, Diversity in State and Federal Appellate Courts:
Change and Continuity Across 20 Years, 29 The Justice System J. 1, 52 (2008); HL 272, House of
Lords Committee on the Constitution, 25th Report of Session 2010–2012 at note 330.
38
See infra Sect. IV.A (citing examples of active judges engaging in outside private judging).
39
Constitutional due process requires judge recusal where a judge has a direct financial interest in
the outcome of a case, presides over a criminal contempt case which resulted from the defendant’s
hostility toward the judge, or where there is a “serious risk of actual bias” where a party “had a sig-
nificant and disproportionate influence in placing the judge on the case by raising funds or directing
the judge’s election campaign when the case was pending or imminent.” Caperton v. Massey, 129
S. Ct. 2252, 2264 (2009) (deeming a “serious risk of actual bias—based on objective and reason-
able perceptions,” where a party’s campaign efforts had a significant and disproportionate influence
in placing the presiding judge on the case). See also Aetna Life Ins. v. Lavoie, 475 US 813 (1986)
(invalidating state appellate judgment in a civil matter where a state judge had a direct financial
interest in the outcome); Liljeberg v. Health Services Acquisition Corp., 486 U.S. 847 (1988).
40
28 U.S.C..§ 455(a) (2012) (emphasis added).
41
Id. (emphasis added) (extending rule to “a person within the third degree of relationship to either
of them, or the spouse of such a person”).
296 M. A. Weston
Chief Justice of the USA.42 The Code of Conduct guides full-time judges on issues of
“judicial integrity and independence, judicial diligence and impartiality, permissible
extrajudicial activities, and the avoidance of impropriety or even its appearance.”43
Judicial conduct rules likewise govern state court judges similar to the principles
of the Model Code of Judicial Conduct.44 These ethical precepts pronounce five
broad canons, requiring that:
Canon I A Judge Shall Uphold the Integrity and Independence of the Judiciary.
Canon II A Judge Shall Avoid Impropriety and the Appearance of Impropriety in
All of the Judge’s Activities.
Canon III A Judge Shall Perform the Duties of Judicial Office Impartially and
Diligently.
Canon IV A Judge Shall So Conduct the Judge’s Extra-Judicial Activities as to
Minimize the Risk of Conflict with Judicial Obligations.
Canon V A Judge or Judicial Candidate Shall Refrain From Inappropriate Politi-
cal Activity.45
In both the courtroom and their personal lives, judges are expected to maintain
high standards of conduct. More specifically, “[t]he duties of judicial office, as pre-
scribed by law, shall take precedence over all of a judge’s personal and extrajudicial
activities.”46 This also means that judges are not permitted to engage in other pri-
vate employment or the practice of law. Both the federal and state model codes of
judicial conduct specifically preclude judges from serving as private mediators and
arbitrators while serving on the bench. 47
42
See also US Courts, Code of Conduct for United States Judges, 1, 17–19 (2012), available at
http://www.uscourts.gov/Viewer.aspx?doc=/uscourts/RulesAndPolicies/conduct/Vol02A-Ch02.
pdf (last visited Nov. 8, 2012). See also 28 U.S.C. § 331 (West. 2012) (establishing the Judicial
Conference of US Judges).
43
US Courts, Code of Conduct for United States Judges (2012), available at http://www.us-
courts.gov/Viewer.aspx?doc=/uscourts/RulesAndPolicies/conduct/Vol02A-Ch02.pdf (last visited
Nov. 8, 2012). Part-time, temporary, and retired judges may be exempt from complying with Can-
on IV of the Code of Conduct, which governs extrajudicial activities that are consistent with the
obligations of judicial office. Id.
44
American Bar Association, Model Code of Judicial Conduct (2012), available at http://www.
americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_code_of_judicial_con-
duct.html.
45
Model Code of Judicial Conduct (2012), United States Courts, Code of Conduct for United
States Judges, 1, 17–19 (2011), available at http://www.uscourts.gov/RulesAndPolicies/CodesOf-
Conduct/CodeConductUnitedStatesJudges.aspx. Part-time, temporary, and retired judges may be
exempt from complying with Canon IV of the Code of Conduct, which governs extrajudicial
activities that are consistent with the obligations of judicial office. Id.
46
American Bar Association, Model Code of Judicial Conduct, Canon 2, R. 2.1 (2012), available
at http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_code_of_
judicial_conduct/model_code_of_judicial_conduct_canon_2.html.
47
Id. at Canon 3, R. 3.9 (“A judge should not act as an arbitrator or mediator or otherwise perform
judicial functions apart from the judge’s official duties unless expressly authorized by law”). Code
of Conduct for United States Judges , supra note 43, at 12 (Canon 4[A][4] [same]).
Professional ethics rules governing lawyers apply to judges who leave the bench
to the extent they remain relevant to the judge’s role. Thus, Model Rule of Profes-
sional Conduct 1.12, addressing conflicts of interest that arise when a judge leaves
the bench and moves into private practice, precludes a lawyer from represent-
ing anyone in a matter in which he participated personally and substantially as a
judge.48 Rule 1.12 also precludes a lawyer from negotiating for employment with
a party where the lawyer had participated as a judge, adjudicative officer, or as an
arbitrator, mediator or third-party neutral.49
Judicial Retention, Attrition, and the Private Alternatives
Appointment to judicial service is considered among the highest callings and hon-
ors in the legal profession. Yet, a shortage of judges and attrition from the bench
are persistent concerns at both the federal and state levels. While the constitutional
provisions for lifetime tenure intend to ensure the independence and stability of
the federal judiciary, this goal is at risk due to failures in the confirmation process,
inadequate judicial pay, and attrition on the federal bench.50 Chief Justice Roberts
echoes this theme in his 2006 annual report on the federal judiciary where he stated
that federal judges “accept difficult work, public criticism [and] even threats to their
personal safety,” and while they may be willing to accept less than what could be
earned in the private sector, “[t]hey can rightly expect, however, to be treated more
fairly than they have been.”51
The Judicial Conference conducts a biennial survey of the federal courts’ judge-
ship needs and presents recommendations to Congress on whether to increase or de-
crease the number of federal judgeships in a particular judicial district.52 As of 2012,
the federal judiciary consisted of 9 Supreme Court Justices, 179 circuit courts of
appeals judges, 677 district courts judges, and 9 posts on the Court of International
48
Model Rules of Prof’l Conduct R. 1.12 (providing that “[a] lawyer shall not represent any-
one in connection with a matter in which the lawyer participated personally and substantially as
a judge or other adjudicative officer or law clerk to such a person or as an arbitrator, mediator or
other third-party neutral, unless all parties to the proceeding give informed consent, confirmed in
writing”).
49
Model Rules of Prof’l Conduct R. 1.12(b).
50
See American Bar Association, Standing Committee on Federal Judicial Improvements Annual
Meeting 1 (Aug. 3, 2012), available at http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administra-
tive/federal_judicial_improvements/12am_scfji_agendabk.authcheckdam.pdf.
51
C.J. John Roberts, 2006 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, United States Courts
(Jan. 2007), http://www.uscourts.gov/News/TheThirdBranch/07-01-01/2006_Year-End_Report_
on_the_Federal_Judiciary.aspx.
52
United States Courts, http://www.uscourts.gov/Common/FAQS.aspx (last visited Oct. 16,
2012). The Judicial Conference considers the number of weighted filings per judgeship, geogra-
phy, the number of senior judges, and the mix of cases as factors in making its judgeship recom-
mendations to Congress. There are no specific qualifications set forth for recommended potential
nominees; however, members of Congress have developed their own informal criteria.
298 M. A. Weston
Trade, for a total of 874 authorized Article III judgeships.53 As of 2012, there were
a total of 17,489 state court judges in the USA.54 Despite these posts, the number
of vacancies and departures from the bench is problematic, even considered at the
“crisis” level.55 The effect is an increased workload and significant trial delays all
around the USA, with some civil cases having up to 3-year delays.56
In a comprehensive study and report entitled Leaving the Bench, researchers
documented the rates of retirement of public judges and examined the underly-
ing causes for attrition on the bench.57 According to the study, between 1970 and
2009, 80 federal judges resigned from office.58 The researchers found that most
resignations during this period were not due to age or health, but rather to pursue
private employment, other employment, and higher salary. According to the study,
“[v]irtually all resignations involve dissatisfaction” with their work as federal judg-
es.59 Fourteen judges entering private practice during this period cited inadequate
salary as an explicit reason prompting their judicial resignation.60 Compensation
was also a likely factor for another 28 judges pursuing private employment upon
resignation, as their salaries reportedly doubled or tripled upon resignation.61 Con-
gress failed to grant cost-of-living adjustments and salary increases for 20 years until
1991.62 This salary increase in 1991 had at least a temporary positive impact on pro-
moting retention, as the retirement rate from 1990 to 1999 decreased.63 Resignation
rates again increased from 2000 to 2009.64 As Congress has not provided salary in-
creases or cost-of-living adjustments since 1991, more judges are opting to retire rather
53
United States Courts, www.uscourts.gov (last visited Oct. 16, 2012).
54
2012 National Association of Women Judges, 2012 Representation of United States State Court
Women Judges, (Dec. 23, 2011), http://www.nawj.org/us_state_court_statistics_2012.asp (citing
The American Bench: Judges of the Nation, Forster-Long, Inc., (2012 ed.).
55
Jerry Markon & Shaleigh Murray, Federal Judicial Vacancies Reach Crisis Point,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/07/AR2011020706032.
html?hpid=topnews
(reporting that “there are now 101 vacancies among the nation’s 857 district and circuit judgeships.
At least 15 more vacancies are expected this year, according to the administrative office of the U.S.
Courts. When Obama took office in 2009, 54 judgeships were open”).
56
Id.
57
Leaving the Bench, supra note 25.]
58
Leaving the Bench, supra note 25, at 14.
59
Leaving the Bench, supra note 25, at 17 (noting overloaded dockets, lack of support services,
Sentencing Guidelines’ constraints on judges.
60
61
62
Leaving the Bench, supra note 25, at 14, 18. “Although 27 federal judges resigned from 1980–
1989 (3.9 % of average authorized judgeships), and 23 federal judges resigned from 2000–2009
(2.8 %), only 10 resigned from 1990–1999 (1.2 %).”
63
64
Leaving the Bench, supra note 25, at 72. Id. at 37 (noting that “there have been no salary in-
creases for federal judges, whatever their status, since 1991”).
than assume senior status, or simply to resign.65 Absent additional improvements,

the long-term trend is toward an increasing number of judicial resignations.
The Private Judging Career
Private dispute resolution, in forms such as arbitration and mediation, has been
used for centuries.66 Traditionally, arbitrators were members of a particular trade or
industry who served on a volunteer basis.67 Modern day private arbitration or me-
diation can be a career in itself. Unlike attorneys who must be licensed to practice
law and held to comply with rules of professional conduct, private neutrals are not
licensed or subject to regulatory oversight. Leading arbitration and mediation pro-
viders, however, have promulgated recommended standards of conduct for neutrals
and established criteria to serve on panel rosters.68
The private judging industry offers a service to parties to privately resolve dis-
putes, free of the rigor and arguable morass of standards of the public legal sys-
tem. It also offers a reprieve from the overworked and underpaid experience as a
public judge, and the potential for lucrative fees. Leaving the Bench notes that “[a]
whopping 83 %” of retired judges surveyed reported working as either an arbitra-
tor, mediator, or in a similar capacity for pay post retirement, including work for
JAMS or other ADR providers.69 The availability of former judges for private hire
has increased dramatically. JAMS, for example, started in 1979 with a single retired
judge. Employing 230 retired judges in 1993 and over 300 full-time neutrals in
2012, JAMS neutrals administer an average of 10,000 cases each year.70 JAMS’
annual revenue has been on an upward trajectory since 1987 at US $2.7 million,
65
Leaving the Bench, supra note 25, at 38. While judges typically do not disclose explicit reasons
for retiring, one focus group revealed that without the additional teaching income available in se-
nior status, at least one judge would have retired and taken up ADR, and a number of respondents
made similar comments. Id. at 61.
66
See, e.g., Soia Mentschikoff, Commercial Arbitration, 61 Colum. L. Rev. 846 (1961) (describ-
ing traditional uses of arbitration).
67
Id. See also Maureen A. Weston, Reexamining Arbitral Immunity in an Age of Mandatory Ar-
bitration and Professional Arbitration, 88 Minn. L. Rev. 449 (2004). See, e.g., American Bar
Association and AAA, Code of Ethics for Arbitrators in Commercial Disputes; AAA Commercial
Arbitration Rules, Rules 12–20 (including standards for recruitment, training, conflicts of inter-
est, and similar matters related to selection of persons for arbitrator panels and for assignment to
particular disputes).
68
See Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Ethics Issues in Arbitration and Related Dispute Resolution Pro-
cesses: What’s Happening and What’s Not, 56 U. Miami L. Rev. 949, 955 (2002). Am. Arb. Ass’n.,
Qualification Criteria for Admittance to the AAA National Roster of Neutrals 1 (listing criteria)
(last visited Nov. 3, 2012), available at http://www.adr.org/aaa/ShowPDF?doc=ADRSTG_003878.
69
Leaving the Bench, supra note 25, at 92. JAMS was founded by the Hon. H. Warren Knight in
1979 and originally included only former judges and stood for the acronym Judicial Arbitration
and Mediation Services. It has since expanded and panels include attorneys as well as former
judges. http://www.jamsadr.com/about-the-jams-name/.
70
JAMS, About JAMS, http://www.jamsadr.com/aboutus_overview/
300 M. A. Weston
to US $24 million in 1991, US $50 million in 1998, US $70 million in 2003, and

reportedly reaching US $80 million in revenue for 2004.71 JAMS purports to be
the largest ADR provider in the world.72 Not far behind, the AAA reported nearly
US $77 million in 2010 revenues from its annual case administration fees.73
Judges serving as private ADR professionals generally charge from US $ 300 to
US $ 500 an hour, although some popular judges command per diem fees in excess
of US $ 10,000.74 A 2007 study of four major ADR firms in California, including
JAMS, concluded that of 483 individual neutrals affiliated with one of the firms,
288 of them were retired judges, charging an average of about US $ 400 per hour.75
A similar migration from the public bench to private neutral work is occurring at the
state level.76 A report listing its assessment of the 500 leading judges included “[t]he
vast realm of alternative dispute resolution presided over by retired judges, arbitra-
tors and mediators, of which there are more than an estimated 20,000 nationwide.
Unlike their counterparts in public service, the best private judges are well paid and
highly sought after for high-stakes, complex cases….”77
Reports of judges leaving the bench to pursue private judging cite the recurring
theme of finances and the need to pay children’s college tuition as primary reasons
for leaving.78 For example, after 17 years of judicial service, New York Judge Belen
left his US $168,600-per-year judge post to pursue a position with JAMS, citing
the [relative] lack of a pay raise as the main force driving his decision to retire.79
71
Marie Beaudette, Neutral Territory, ADR Law Notes (April 2004), available at http://www.
landandmaritime.dla.mil/…/adr/…/ADR_Lawnotes_April.
72
JAMS, About JAMS, http://www.jamsadr.com/aboutus_overview; see also American Arbitra-
tion Association, 2010 President’s Letters and Financial Statements, available at http://www.
adr.org/aaa/ShowProperty?nodeId=%2FUCM%2FADRSTG_004001&revision=latestreleased
73
American Arbitration Association, 2010 Presidents Letter and Financial Statements, 4 (2010)
(reporting nearly US $ 77 million revenues from case administration fees), available at http://www.
adr.org/aaa/ShowProperty?nodeId=%2FUCM%2FADRSTG_004001&revision=latestreleased.
74
Anne S. Kim, Rent-A-Judges and the Cost of Selling Justice, 44 Duke L. J.166, 175 (1994).
75
Sara Laufer Batinovich, Neutrals In California: Descriptive Findings On A Study of Retired
Judges And Practicing Attorneys, Mediate.com (Mar. 2009), http://www.mediate.com/articles/
batinovichSL1.cfm.
76
Capturing Excellence, The Lawdragon 500: Leading Judgesin America, http://www.lawdragon.
com/images/uploads/pdf/LD500_Leading_Judges2.pdf 18, 30 (listing, inter alia, former Utah Su-
preme Court Justice Michael Zimmerman, retired in 2000, former federal district court judge Layn
R. Phillips (Fmr), and J. Lawrence Irving, among the most prominent and sought-after commercial
arbitrators and mediators).
77
Id.
78
Roy A. Schotland, Judges Pay: A Chasm Worse Than Realized, 82 Ind. L. J. 1273 (2007) (argu-
ing that “[l]ow salaries guarantee a revolving door of judges that will erode the quality of justice.
As judges’ children grow older, experienced and talented judges will be forced to leave the bench
to meet tuition obligations. Therefore, only young judges who view the bench as a stepping stone
to other ambitions, and older judges who have independent means, will remain”).
79
Molly McDonough, NY Judge Quits for ADR Job, Cites Pay as Reason, ABA Journal (Aug. 16,
2012), http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/ny_judge_quits_for_adr_job_cites_pay_as_rea-
son/. See also Dan Krisch, Judges Jump Ship in Growing Numbers (noting that “[w]hile $ 146,780
a year isn’t chump change, especially given the current state of the economy, it’s also about the
Announcements of judges resigning for private practice also emphasize the benefits
of ADR.80 Specializing in ADR permits a retired judge to continue using the skills
and experience of a judge in a less adversarial process, earn many times his or her
judicial salary, and enjoy a flexible work schedule.81
Effects of Judicial Migration Toward Commercialized

ADR
The increased availability of judges choosing early retirement, or simply resigning,

to pursue commercialized ADR seemingly enhances the availability of qualified and
experienced neutrals to participants in a private ADR process. Parties tend to select
a former judge as a private neutral for that expertise and ability to provide a realistic
evaluation and adjudication that would approximate trial. In addition to providing
increased access to ADR services, former judges may facilitate higher resolution
rates, participant satisfaction, reduced overall workload, and collaborative efforts
with the courts.82 Despite these recognizable benefits, the trend carries the potential
to threaten the quality and integrity of both the public and private justice systems.83
Brain Drain and Closed Proceedings
The loss of public judges to commercialized private ADR practice presents a range
of concerns for the public justice system. A frequently cited negative effect of pri-
vate ADR on the courts is that it is luring judges from the public bench to pursue
salary of a senior associate at a big firm—and one-half or even one-third of what many successful
partners at those firms make”).
80
See e.g., Dan Krisch, Judges Jump Ship in Growing Numbers, Conn. Law Tribune (Sept. 28,
2012) (expressing concern about the “trickling exodus” of judges to private practice and ADR
and that “[m]any of our best judicial minds are embracing new, less adversarial models of civ-
il litigation”); Thomas B. Scheffey, Another Big Hitter Leaves the Bench, Conn. Law Tribune
(July 27, 2012) (reporting on Superior Court Judge Robert Holzberg’s resignation from the bench
to become a partner and mediator in a private law firm), available at http://www.ctlawtribune.
com/PubArticleCT.jsp?id=1202564755043&Another_Big_Hitter_Leaves_The_Bench&slretu
rn=20120917215400; Retired circuit court judge, full-time ADR neutral, available at http://dlir.
state.hi.us/labor/hlrb/arbitrators/resumes/McConnell,%20E.%20John%20%20Resume.pdf;
81
See Ann S. Kim, Rent-a-Judge and The Cost of Selling Justice, 44 Duke L. J. 166, 175–176 (1994).
82
Alternative Dispute Resolution In Civil Cases: The Report Of The Task Force On The Qual-
ity Of Justice Subcommittee On Alternative Dispute Resolution And The Judicial System, at
37–48. (Aug. 1999) [hereinafter Alternative Dispute Resolution In Civil Cases].
83
See Lauren K. Robel, Private Justice and the Federal Bench, 68 Ind. L. J. 891 (1993) (stating
that “alternatives to public courts-notably private judges and the proliferation of alternative dispute
resolution providers-are threatening public judges’ place in dispute resolution”); Kim, 44 Duke L.
J. at 189 (discussing public policy implications).
302 M. A. Weston
careers as private ADR providers, thereby drawing the “best and brightest” from the
public bench.84 As one commentator notes,
[t]here is a serious brain drain going on in our courts-especially, although not exclusively,
in state courts. We are losing many of our most experienced jurists. They are leaving the
bench in large numbers and joining alternative dispute resolution firms (such as JAMS), are
simply going out on their own to act as neutrals (mediators and arbitrators), or are returning
to private practice.85
In his plea for an increase in judicial pay, Chief Justice Roberts warned that “judges
are no longer drawn primarily from among the best lawyers in the practicing bar”
and “[i]f judicial appointment ceases to be the capstone of a distinguished career
and instead becomes a stepping stone to a lucrative position in private practice, the
Framers’ goal of a truly independent judiciary will be placed in serious jeopardy.”86
In addition to concerns of attracting and retaining a highly qualified judiciary,
the trend toward private justice restricts public transparency and precedent develop-
ment. Judges who retire for commercialized ADR no longer have authority to inter-
pret the rule of law or establish precedent to ensure the protection of legal rights. As
more judges choose earlier retirement, newly appointed judges have fewer senior
judges to serve as their mentors to assist with difficult decisions affecting public
policy. Rather than set forth clear pronouncements of legal doctrine, private judges
have more of an incentive to be accommodating, vague, or inconsistent in their rul-
ings in order to remain palatable to both sides for future appointments.87 As a result,
parties’ ability to structure their conduct, business, and affairs to conform with legal
standards is impaired.
Conflicts of Interest: Apparent, Potential, and Actual
Judicial migration toward private neutral work also poses concerns about potential,
actual, or the appearance of, conflicts of interest and misuse of judicial status for
private commercial purposes.88 This concern exists both while judges are on the
bench considering the prospect of private judging employment options, and while
84
Alternative Dispute Resolution In Civil Cases, supra note 79, at 27.
85
Rex S. Heinke, The Case for Raising Judicial Salaries, LA Lawyer (Feb. 2001), available at,
http://www.lacba.org/showpage.cfm?pageid=1198. See also Roy A. Schotland, Judges Pay: A
Chasm Worse Than Realized, 82 Ind. L. J. 1273 (2007).
86
Id.
87
See e.g., Kim, 44 Duke L.J. at 189–194 (asserting that “[p]rivate judges tend to avoid creat-
ing a coherent set of precedents; predictability could destroy a rent-a-judge’s appeal to potential
customers….”).
88
Caperton, 129 S.Ct. at 2264 (noting that “impermissible conflicts arise not only from a judge’s
pecuniary interest in a case, but also from the “possibility” of a temptation to disregard neutral-
ity”). Even an amorphous “probability of bias,” will itself bring our judicial system into unde-
served disrepute, and diminish the confidence of the American people in the fairness and integrity
of their courts). Id.
off the bench, in continuing to use the title and status as a former judge in the mar-
keting and practice of private judging.
On the Bench: Negotiations and Assignment Selection
Concerned that the allure of private judging could create a conflict of interest for
judges seeking to use the public justice system as a revolving door to private indus-
try, California enacted legislation providing for the disqualification of any judge
who has arranged for future employment or other compensated service as a dispute
resolution neutral.89 The California legislation reported findings that certain judges
were requesting assignments to hear types of cases where referral to private ADR
was widely used.90 In other cases, some judges in transactions with parties either
solicited or indicated an interest in possible employment or service as an ADR neu-
tral.91
Such a disqualification motion was ordered in Rossco Holdings Inc. v. Bank
of America,92 regardless of any showing of actual bias. In Rossco, the judge who
presided over a lawsuit between a bank and holding company had participated in
substantial negotiations with dispute resolution providers regarding possible em-
ployment during the time the bank moved to compel arbitration. Although the
Legislature had amended the governing statute in response to a judicial ruling on
that statute, the statute continued to disqualify judges,93 such as Rossco’s presiding
judge, who participated in “substantial” negotiations for employment as a dispute
resolution neutral.94
The plaintiffs in Great Western Mining & Mineral v. Fox Rothschild alleged in a
conspiracy claim that certain Pennsylvania state court judges who had presided over
their lawsuit in state court denied them the right to be heard in an impartial forum
because the judges hoped to secure future employment as arbitrators with ADR Op-
tions, Inc., a private dispute resolution company, after leaving the bench and thus
89
Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 170.1 (West).
90
See generally Reynolds Holding, Private Justice: Millions Are Losing Their Rights, S.F. Chron-
icle, Oct. 7 at A1, Oct. 8 at A15, Oct. 9 at A13 (2000) (four-part series on mandatory arbitration in
California), available at, http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/PRIVATE-JUSTICE-Millions-are-
losing-their-legal-2872314.php#ixzz2C40KwMCc (reporting, among the concerns of mandatory
arbitration, that judges may be compromised by the “[s]oaring demand and potentially high pay
[which] have lured an increasing number of sitting judges into arbitration—particularly in Cali-
fornia—and pressured some to act in ways that may impress arbitration firms but weaken public
confidence in the courts”).
91
Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 170.1(a)(8)(A) (West).
92
Rossco Holdings Inc. v. Bank of Am.,149 Cal.App.4th 1353, 1361–1363 (2007).
93
Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 170.1(a)(8)(A) (West) (“A judge shall be disqualified if any one or more
of the following are true: The judge has a current arrangement concerning prospective employment
or other compensated service as a dispute resolution neutral or is participating in, or, within the
last two years has participated in, discussions regarding prospective employment or service as a
dispute resolution neutral….”).
94
Rossco Holdings Inc., 149 Cal.App. 4th at 1362.
304 M. A. Weston
had an incentive to rule in the defendant company’s favor. Although the Third Cir-
cuit recognized that “[f]or a judge to approach a party for whom he or she has just
ruled to discuss the possibility of working for that party certainly creates a strong
appearance of impropriety,” it dismissed the conspiracy claim against the defendant
because the alleged conduct indicated unilateral action on the part of certain judges,
as opposed to specific misconduct by the non-judicial actor defendant.95
Potential Repeat Player Bias
Another concern raised by the prospect of judges leaving to pursue private ADR
involves the risk that judges may favor a party that is likely to generate repeat busi-
ness. The “repeat player,” whether in court or private arbitration, is generally the
corporate party with greater resources than an individual claimant. Although private
neutrals are likely to comply with ethical standards of impartiality, the economic
incentive to favor the party likely to supply future business can affect perceptions
about commercialized ADR services.96
Prescriptions for Commercialized Judging
The California Approach: Requiring Judges to Choose
Addressing the criticism that the trend to privatize justice is creating a two-tiered
system of justice, one for the rich and one for the poor, California—which has led
the nation in “private judging” since the 1980s—is forcing retired judges to choose
between the two systems.97 As of January 31, 2012, retired judges in California
must decide whether they would accept fill-in assignments on the bench or work as
private neutrals, but they cannot do both.98 As a result of this rule, California court
95
Great W. Mining & Mineral Co. v. Fox Rothschild LLP, 615 F.3d 159 (3rd Cir. 2010) (dismiss-
ing complaint for failure to state a claim based on insufficient factual allegations suggesting a
conspiracy between the party and presiding judge).
96
Despite the protection of lifetime tenure accorded to federal judges, federal judicial salaries
have lagged below compensation packages of private industry. Moreover, where compensation is
a primary motivator influencing judges’ retirement decisions, the private judges in highest demand
may only choose to pursue the most lucrative form of ADR, and thereby dilute the availability of
other, otherwise effective forms of ADR. Amy Litkowitz, The Advantages of Using a Rent-a-Judge
System in Ohio, 10 Ohio St. J. on Disp. Resol. 491, 494 (1998).
97
Martin Kasindorf, Rent-A-Judges Forced Out of California Courts, USA Today (April 24, 2003),
available at, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-04-24-rentajudge-usat_x.htm.
98
Id. California incorporates the use of private judging in its court system, permitting retired
judges and attorneys to serve as private judges on pending cases. Under the California Constitu-
tion, litigants have the option to have their case heard by a private judge, paid by the parties. See
Cal. Const. art. VI, § 21. See Amanda Bronstad, “Private judges” alter legal landscape, National
officials anticipated as much as 80 % of the 381 retirees who volunteered bench du-
ties in 2012 to instead pursue the greener pastures of private judging.99 The pastures
are literally greener for California’s retired judges, because it is a choice between
earning US $ 512.76 a day accepting fill-in assignments, or as much as US $ 10,000
a day deciding outside disputes.100
The California decree requiring judges to choose between fill-in assignments and
the private sector was implemented because retired judges’ “private work affected
their work in courts.”101 Some part-time judges had been “touting themselves” in
courthouse chambers to draw in outside business, and one Los Angeles judge even
recessed a jury trial for several days while he adjudicated a private case.102 The
California rule seeks to guard against judges potentially favoring one party who
may be in a position to hire or appoint the judge in a future private ADR proceeding.
Enforce Ethical Restrictions Regarding Public Judges and Private

ADR
On the Bench: Restrict Negotiations
Ethical canons governing judges, lawyers, and neutrals share the goal of fostering
integrity in the public and private justice systems. Certainly, judges still active on
the bench are subject to judicial conduct rules. Among these rules is the proviso
that “[a] judge should neither lend the prestige of the judicial office to advance the
private interests of the judge or others nor convey or permit others to convey the
impression that they are in a special position to influence the judge.”103 Moreover,
a judge is permitted to use official letterhead only “[i]f the judge indicates that the
reference is personal and if there is no likelihood that the use of the letterhead would
Law Journal (April 5, 2006) (noting that in addition to California, at least four other states—Ohio,
Indiana, Texas, and Colorado—in the last year have passed legislation or are considering new rules
that broaden the authority of private judges to hear cases); Ann S. Kim, Rent-a-Judge and The Cost
of Selling Justice, 44 Duke L. J. 166, 190 (1994) (explaining California’s “rent-a-judge process”);
Jill S. Robbins, The Private Judge: California Anomaly or Wave of the Future (discussing the
incorporation of private judging as an adjunct to public courts and authorized by the California
Rules of Court), available at http://www.iaml.org/cms_media/files/the_private_judge_california_
anomaly_or_wave_of_the_future.pdf?static=1.
99
Martin Kasindorf, Rent-A-Judges Forced Out of California Courts, USA Today (April 24, 2003),
available at http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-04-24-rentajudge-usat_x.htm.
100
Id.
101
Id.
102
Id.
103
American Bar Association, Model Code of Judicial Conduct, Canon 2B (2012), available at
http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_code_of_ju-
dicial_conduct/model_code_of_judicial_conduct_canon_2.html. See also Id. at Rule 1.3 (“[a]
judge shall not abuse the prestige of judicial office to advance the personal or economic interests
of the judge or others, or allow others to do so”).
306 M. A. Weston
reasonably be perceived as an attempt to exert pressure by reason of the judicial

office.”104
Although retired or former judges are not technically bound by such restrictions,
where these former judges are using their judicial status to promote private employ-
ment, similar ethical principles should apply.105 With this in mind, California’s ap-
proach to limiting retired judges to either fill-in assignments or private judging, but
not both, prevents a retired judge’s personal activities from interfering with duties
of the judicial office. Disqualification of judges on the bench who engage in discus-
sions for prospective employment as a dispute resolution neutral is likewise justi-
fied.106 A judge who negotiates for employment or uses the prestige of the judge’s
formal title on judicial letterhead in an effort to secure a position as a private neutral
runs afoul of the spirit and even letter of this rule.
Off the Bench: Restrict Use of Judicial Status in Private ADR Marketing
Judges who choose to leave the bench for private judging should not leverage the
prestige of the judicial office to advance that interest. While a former judge may
truthfully advertise his or her judicial experience, advertising that experience with
a title like “The Honorable” tends to convey an aura of authority beyond a private
professional.107 The American Bar Association’s (ABA) position is that a former
judge who returns to the practice of law may not continue to use the titles “judge”
104
American Bar Association, Model Code of Judicial Conduct, Canon 2, R. 1.3 cmt. 2 (2012),
available at http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/professional_responsi-
bility/2011_mcjc_rule1_3.authcheckdam.pdf.
105
“A judge shall not act as an arbitrator or a mediator or perform other judicial functions apart
from the judge’s official duties unless expressly authorized by law.” American Bar Association,
Model Code of Judicial Conduct, Canon 3, R. 3.9 (2012), available at http://www.americanbar.
org/content/dam/aba/administrative/professional_responsibility/2011_mcjc_rule3_9.authcheck-
dam.pdf.
106
See Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 170.1(a)(8) (West) (requiring disqualification where “(A) The
judge has a current arrangement concerning prospective employment or other compensated service
as a dispute resolution neutral or is participating in, or, within the last two years has participated
in, discussions regarding prospective employment or service as a dispute resolution neutral, or has
been engaged in that employment or service, and any of the following applies: (i) The arrangement
is, or the prior employment or discussion was, with a party to the proceeding; (ii) The matter before
the judge includes issues relating to the enforcement of either an agreement to submit a dispute
to an [ADR] process or an award or other final decision by a dispute resolution neutral; (iii) The
judge directs the parties to participate in an [ADR] process in which the dispute resolution neutral
will be an individual or entity with whom the judge has the arrangement, has previously been em-
ployed or served, or is discussing or has discussed the employment or service; [or] (iv) The judge
will select a dispute resolution neutral or entity to conduct an [ADR] process in the matter before
the judge, and among those available for selection is an individual or entity with whom the judge
has the arrangement, with whom the judge has previously been employed or served, or with whom
the judge is discussing or has discussed the employment or service”).
107
Joanne Pelton Pitulla, Trading on Titles, 6 No. 4 Prof. Law. 14 (Aug. 1995).
or “honorable” because the use of such titles is “misleading” and “may be misun-
derstood by the public as suggesting some type of special influence.”108
Despite the ABA’s ethical opinion, ADR provider institutions continue to widely
advertise their services, members and expertise, in legal newspapers, brochures, and
on websites. For example, JAMS lists the honorific names and pictures of 43 former
federal judges and provides the following announcement:
These former and retired federal judges are exclusively associated with JAMS for the pro-
fessional practice of ADR. They are all experts or experienced in federal law issues, such
as securities, intellectual property, and employment, and in some cases have expertise or
experience in such fields as bankruptcy, admiralty, and environmental law. 109
The Florida Supreme Court Committee on ADR addressed the use and market-
ing of prior adjudicative experience in 2010. Florida Supreme Court Rule 10.610,
governing mediator advertising and marketing practices, precludes former judges
from using the title “judge” in marketing materials in connection with their media-
tion services, restricts a former judge serving as a mediator from using the prestige
of the judicial office to advance his or her private interests, or from appearing in
judicial robes in advertisements. The title “judge” may not be used with or without
modifiers to the mediator’s name in any advertisement.110
Unlike most other professional titles, judicial titles are not portable. They travel
with the position, not the person. As such, judges must be prepared to gracefully
relinquish the prestige of judicial office upon retirement.111
Disclose and Abide by ADR Ethical Canons
As private neutrals, former judges are subject to the ethical canons of conduct for
neutrals and are governed by state law.112 The AAA/ABA Code of Ethics for Arbi-
trators in Commercial Disputes prescribes “Canons” for arbitrators similar to the
Judicial Code of Conduct in imposing obligations for arbitrators to uphold the fair-
ness of the arbitration process, to disclose conflicts of interest, adhere to standards
of integrity and fairness.113 Canon VII of the Code addresses arbitrator advertising,
108
ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Op. 95–391 (Apr. 24, 1995).
109
JAMS, JAMS Federal Judges List, http://www.jamsadr.com/files/Uploads/Documents/federal_
Judges.pdf (dated Oct. 9, 2001 and updated Nov. 2012).
110
Florida Supreme Court Rules, SC09-1384, Rule 10.610 (adopted Apr. 2012). See Mark D.
Killian, Court Sets Rules for Mediator Marketing Retired Judges Practicing as Mediators Can’t
be Pictured in Robes, Florida Bar News, Vol. 37, No. 9 (May 1, 2010).
111
Joanne Pelton Pitulla, Trading on Titles, 6 No. 4 Prof. Law. 14 (Aug. 1995).
112
See e.g., Am. Arb. Ass’n, Code of Ethics for Commercial Arbitrators (Oct. 2011), available
at http://www.adr.org/aaa/faces/arbitratorsmediators/aboutarbitratorsmediators/codeofethics?_af-
rLoop=1472893722402940&_afrWindowMode=0&_afrWindowId=pzu6qy9u1_10#%40%3F_
a f r Wi n d o w I d % 3 D p z u 6 q y 9 u 1 _ 1 0 % 2 6 _ a f r L o o p % 3 D 1 4 7 2 8 9 3 7 2 2 4 0 2 9 4 0 % 2 6 _
afrWindowMode%3D0%26_adf.ctrl-state%3D6dyhj5pju_4.
113
AAA/ABA, Code of Ethics for Arbitrators in Commercial Disputes (2004). http://www.ameri-
canbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/dispute/commercial_disputes.authcheckdam.pdf
308 M. A. Weston
permitting an arbitrator to engage in advertising or promotion of arbitral services

which are truthful, accurate, and unlikely to mislead.114 California requires private
arbitrators to comply with a set of disclosure rules designed to ensure impartiality.
While the ethical canons do not have the force of law, these best practices reflect a
commitment to uphold integrity and fairness in the private dispute resolution con-
text as well.115
The Judicial Conference Should Adopt an Explicit Ethical Canon

Restricting Use of Honorifics in Private Neutral Advertising
“The Honorable” and “Esquire” are honorifics, which are titles traditionally used to
convey honor and respect. Derived from the Latin word scutarius (“shield bearer”),
“Esquire” came to be a title of respect traditionally meant as having a social status
higher than Gentleman, but lower than Knight.116 Similarly, “The Honorable” tradi-
tionally applied to sons and daughters of men in social title, such as Barons. Use of
the title “Esquire” by unlicensed and retired lawyers not current with their State Bar
Associations constitutes the unauthorized practice of law in violation of state law
and lawyer professional conduct rules.117
The ABA Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility has opined that
“it is improper for a former judge who returns to the practice of law to refer to him-
self, or encourage others to refer to him, by any title that refers to his former judicial
status.”118 Model Rule 7.1 prohibits “false or misleading communication about the
lawyer’s services.” A communication is false or misleading if it “is likely to create
an unjustified expectation about results a lawyer can achieve, or states or implied
that a lawyer can achieve results by means that violate the rules of professional
conduct or other law.” Accordingly, the use of judicial titles in the practice of law is
“misleading insofar as it is likely to create an unjustified expectation about the re-
sults a lawyer can achieve and to exaggerate the influence the lawyer may be able to
114
Id. (Canon VIII). See also Bruce Meyerson & John M. Townsend, Revised Code of Ethics for
Commercial Arbitrators Explained, 59 Disp. Resol. J. 10 (2004).
115
See e.g., Cal. Code Civ. Pro. § 1281.9. Ethics Standards for Neutral Arbitrators in Contractual
Arbitrations, Division VI, California Rules of Court Appendix A (rev. 2003) (“(a) In any arbitra-
tion pursuant to an arbitration agreement, when a person is to serve as a neutral arbitrator, the
proposed neutral arbitrator shall disclose all matters that could cause a person aware of the facts
to reasonably entertain a doubt that the proposed neutral arbitrator would be able to be impartial,
including… [1–8].”
116
Gertrude Block, Language Tips, N.Y. St. B. J., September 2007, at 54.
117
http://minnlawyer.com/jdr/2010/10/22/the-honorable-esquires-what’s-right-to-write/.
118
Elizabeth K. Thorp & Kimberly A. Weber, Recent Opinions from the American Bar Associa-
tion Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, 9 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 1009,
1012 (1996).
wield.”119 The Committee was also concerned that the use of an honorific title might
constitute professional misconduct under Model Rule 8.4(e), which states that “it
is professional misconduct for a lawyer to… state or imply an ability to influence
improperly a government agency or official.”
Canon 2B of the Code of Conduct for US Judges instructs that, “a judge [shall
not] convey or permit to convey the impression that they are in a special position to
influence the judge.” Advisory Opinion No. 72 further outlines that,
A litigant whose lawyer is called “Mr.,” and whose adversary’s lawyer is called “Judge,”
may reasonably lose a degree of confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.
In addition, application of the same title to advocates and to the presiding judicial officer
can tend to demean the court as an institution. Judge should insure that the title “judge”
is not used in the courtroom or in papers involved in litigation before them to designate a
former judge, unless the designation is necessary to accurately describe a person’s status at
a time pertinent to the lawsuit.120
While the Advisory Opinion provides this guidance with respect to prohibiting the
use of honorific titles in courtroom litigation, the same rationale applies to former
judges participating in private neutral work. To clarify the intended reaches of Can-
on 2B of the Model Code of Judicial Conduct, the Judicial Conference and ADR
providers should adopt an explicit ethical canon restricting the use of honorifics in
private neutral advertising.121
It could be argued that the title of “Judge” or “The Honorable” supplants the
title of “Mister” and that stripping a retired judge of a title that he or she has earned
would be discourteous. However, addressing a practicing attorney or private neutral
as “Judge” or “The Honorable” may cause confusion and unwarranted deference.
For example, decisions made by a private arbitrator who chooses to retain their hon-
orific titles after retirement could cause a judge conducting appellate review to give
excess weight to the arbitrator’s decision, thereby unfairly bolstering the prevailing
party’s decision to stand on appeal.
Retired judges who have resumed the practice of law do not need to make their
previous employment secret. They just should not be permitted to or allow others
to flaunt their honorific title in a way that influences the judiciary or parties in an
ADR process. While a former judge may advertise his or her experience, a former
judge should not be allowed to market him or herself as “Judge Smith (former)” or
“Honorable John Smith (Ret.)” for these purposes.
119
Opinion 95–391.
120
Id.
121
For example, in Canada “Honourable” is only a lifetime title for certain public service hold-
ers, including the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice, and Senators. The Speaker of the House of
Commons, Supreme Court of Canada judges, Federal Court judges, Tax Court judges, and judges
of Provincial and Territorial Courts, by contrast, lose their honorific titles after they leave office.
http://www.pch.gc.ca/pgm/ceem-cced/prtcl/titre-eng.cfm.
310 M. A. Weston
Conclusion
Judges are trusted, revered for their wisdom, impartiality, and allegiance to justice
and the rule of law. As their core roles, “[j]udges should imagine themselves as mor-
al guardians, imposing from above their own notions of what is right and wrong.”122
Indeed, “[a]n independent and honorable judiciary is indispensable to justice in our
society. A judge should participate in establishing, maintaining and enforcing high
standards of conduct, and shall personally observe those standards so that the integ-
rity and independence of the judiciary will be preserved….”123
Public perception of judges—public or private—has a significant effect on the
public confidence in the justice system. A judge’s respect for the judicial office
must, and in most cases, likely is carried into their subsequent private career. The
principles underlying the ethical and professional standards governing judicial con-
duct apply with equal force to private judges.
The public courts are clearly overburdened and underfunded, and the ADR
movement is valuable for advancing effective alternatives to litigation. The legiti-
mate concerns posed by judges leaving the bench earlier than they otherwise would
have to pursue employment as private neutrals, and the risk of second class justice,
compel attention to invest not only in the public justice system and to renew the
calling and lure of public service, but also to attend to similar risks in the private
justice arena.
122
Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain, The Role of the Federal Judge Under the Constitution: Some Perspec-
tives from the Ninth Circuit, 33 Harv. J. L & Pub. Pol’y 963, 969 (2010) (citing Seventh Circuit
Judge Richard Posner).
123
See Model Code of Judicial Conduct, Canon, supra note 44.
Part VI
Bringing Well-being to Children
in Conflict
Chapter 12
Recess in Primary School: The Disjuncture
Between Educational Policy and Scientific
Research
Catherine M. Bohn-Gettler and Anthony D. Pellegrini
During a typical school day, children engage in a variety of activities. Some of these
activities may be considered more academic in nature, such as formal phonics, sci-
ence, or math lessons. However, other parts of the day may be less structured and
considered to be more “playful.” Recess is a time during which children can engage
in unstructured social interaction. It constitutes a break in the school day from intel-
lectual and academic lessons, and often occurs in tandem with lunch. It typically
lasts approximately 10–15 min or longer (Centers for Disease Control and Preven-
tion, CDCP, 2010). Recess usually occurs outdoors, often on playgrounds, although
depending upon weather and facilities indoor recess is also practiced (Pellegrini and
Holmes 2006). It is important to note, however, that much variation exists between
schools and classrooms in the duration and implementation of recess (Pellegrini and
Bohn 2005).
Importantly, recess is a time that is unstructured and undirected by adults. Adults
primarily supervise children’s behavior, ensure children’s safety, and intervene
when there is conflict or aggression. Otherwise, children choose their own activi-
ties, physical activity levels, and social interaction styles and levels. They are not
restrained by adults and will often develop their own games and engage in free play.
Free play represents a class of behaviors that are means-oriented rather than ends-
oriented (Burghardt 1988; Pellegrini and Holmes 2006; Pellegrini and Smith 1993;
Waite-Stupiansky and Findlay 2001).
Recess has been a normal practice in schools for decades, perhaps centuries. The
primary rationale for providing breaks to students and employees is to increase pro-
ductivity (Russell 1932/1972). Receiving breaks, such as a break during the office
day or from factory assembly lines, has been a standard practice in the workforce.
As another example, when drivers embark upon long road trips, it is considered
C. M. Bohn-Gettler ()
Education Department, College of Saint Benedict - Saint John’s University, 37 South College
Avenue, St. Joseph, MN 56374, USA
e-mail: cbohngettler@csbsju.edu
A. D. Pellegrini
Department of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota, 56 East River Road,
Minneapolis, MN 55455-0364, USA
314 C. M. Bohn-Gettler and A. D. Pellegrini
healthy and safe to take frequent breaks, because attention diminishes as time be-
tween breaks increases. In fact, because of attention-related issues, a variety of laws
require that workplaces provide breaks to employees, and laws govern the length
of time that individuals such as truckers or airline pilots can drive or fly without a
break. The US Department of Labor (2007) specifies regulations for rest periods for
adults in the workplace. It is recommended that employees receive periodic breaks
of approximately 5–20 min, depending on the length of time they work (Howard
1994; US Department of Labor 2007).
Just as in the workforce, breaks in the day are normal practice in educational set-
tings. In schools, breaks often take the form of recess. However, in recent decades,
the nation has turned its attention to improving achievement and standardized test
scores. This has led to calls for increased instructional time, and, as a result, re-
duced recess time. There is also a national emphasis on utilizing research to make
evidence-based decisions regarding best practices in school policy and instruction
(Jarrett and Maxwell 2000). This chapter aims to address the critical issue of wheth-
er recess adds value to education by describing research which examines the effects
of recess on development and achievement.
Overview of the Debate
In the early 1990s, the debate over the role of recess emerged in the state of Geor-
gia. During this time, standardized test scores were the sole criterion for children’s
promotion from kindergarten to first grade. As a result of this environment, many
legislators, school officials, and teachers began to seek ways to improve assessment
scores. Considering the limited number of school hours during the day, it seemed
only logical that minimizing or eliminating a seemingly trivial practice like recess
would improve achievement. This may be why children’s recess continues to be
threatened in many schools across North America and the UK (Pellegrini 2005).
From outside appearances, it would seem that recess activities are not very serious,
and some argue that it may interfere with the educational mission of schools (for
more information, see Jarrett and Waite-Stupiansky 2009; Johnson 1998; “No Time
for Play” 2001).
The controversy over whether it is appropriate to reduce or eliminate recess
continued to gain steam in the decades following the 1990s. Glickman and Pel-
legrini wrote articles in the Atlanta Journal Constitution and Principal (Pellegrini
1991; Pellegrini and Glickman 1989) in an effort to publicize research findings for
the general public regarding standardized testing and the positive effects of recess.
These articles were geared toward the community of primary school principals and
teachers and the parents of young children. Despite these efforts, the anti-recess
movement continued to grow and the debate became a hot topic for schools across
the country.
Policy makers, teachers, parents, and reporters in the USA and the UK began
researching and contacting experts about recess. This became such a hot topic that
12 Recess in Primary School: The Disjuncture Between Educational … 315
both authors of this chapter have been asked for interviews by journalists in several
jurisdictions. One of this chapter’s authors (Anthony Pellegrini) was even sought
for an interview while travelling abroad (see the Pittsburgh Press, 27 October 1991).
The urgency of the debate over whether or not to reduce or eliminate recess
has only increased over time. This topic is of critical importance when making
policy decisions regarding education for children. The purpose of this chapter is
to advocate for children so that decisions about recess are based on empirical data
and theory. In an era of advocating for best practices, any drastic changes should
be directed by scientific research. There is overwhelming evidence that the ben-
efits of recess clearly outweigh its costs. To ignore this evidence is a tremendous
waste of resources (e.g., kids’ and teachers’ time and effort and taxpayers’ money).
Stakeholders in the educational enterprise should demand accountability from their
school boards, principals, and teachers when considering the elimination of recess
in schools, just as they would when considering other major curricular changes.
Overview of Chapter
This chapter presents an overview of issues central to the debate surrounding the
role of recess in school, addressed in greater detail in other books and articles on the
topic (e.g., Pellegrini 2005; Pellegrini and Bohn 2005). Specifically, we attempt to
broach two views of recess: the movement to eliminate or reduce the school recess
period from the primary school day and the perceived value of recess. We begin
with a description of how recess has changed over history, highlighting the erosion
of recess time. Next, we explain the arguments for reducing or eliminating recess
time, such as the perceived increases in achievement, decreases in bullying, and the
potential benefits of replacing recess with physical education. Following this, we
describe the arguments in support of the inclusion of recess. We begin by describing
the theories of classic scholars. Then, we examine scientific research investigat-
ing how recess and play benefits children by helping prepare them for adulthood,
increasing well-being (e.g., physical fitness), improving classroom behavior, and
enhancing social competence. We end this section by describing research linking
recess and play to cognition and academic success, which is supported by research
on massed versus distributed practice. We conclude with developmental research,
which suggests that younger children demonstrate a greater benefit from recess and
are less reliable test takers, considerations that should be taken into account when
making policy decisions.
In addition, the chapter proffers the argument that theories are needed to guide
our quests to understand the phenomenon of recess. Theories provide road maps to
the questions we ask in the scientific enterprise. That is, theories offer us a frame
around which we understand the data generated in empirical research. The quip,
“There is nothing as practical as a good theory” holds merit: Without theory we can-
not ask informed scientific questions, make sense of our data, or progress toward a
deep understanding of our areas of study. Thus, any decisions regarding recess time
should be based on theories and empirical research.
The Eroding State of Recess
Breaks in the school day have been considered a normal practice for decades, and
possibly centuries. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century primary school buildings in
the USA and the UK had separate areas of school grounds designated for play. Some
schools even had separate entrances and play areas for boys and girls to utilize
during their breaks (this is not a common practice now). However, recess time has
been eroding over the last 25 years, which provides a barometer of how recess is
perceived as less important to the school day.
There is evidence that some schools began cutting recess to allow for more
instructional time in the late 1980s (Jarrett and Waite-Stupiansky 2009). To our
knowledge, one of the first surveys of recess conducted in the USA asked school
superintendents in all 50 states and Washington, DC to specify how much time
was dedicated to recess during the school day (National Association of Elemen-
tary School Principles, NAESP, 1989, as cited in Pellegrini 1995). Responses were
received from 47 states, and the results indicated that recess existed in some form
in approximately 90 % of the responding school districts. The amount of time al-
located to recess was determined by individual schools, which resulted in variation
within districts and states. For example, although 90 % of respondents indicated
that recess existed in some form in their districts, 87 % of schools reported offer-
ing recess. In 96 % of these cases, recess occurred once or twice per day. In 75 %
of the cases, the recess period lasted 15–20 min. From these data, however, we do
not know the form of the recess period. For example, we do not know if organized
physical education was counted as recess. Indeed, about one-half of those districts
had “structured” rather than unstructured recess times.
The push to decrease recess time continued to gain steam in the 1990s. Some
school districts began implementing no-recess policies on the basis that recess
wasted time better spent on academics (Jarrett and Waite-Stupiansky 2009; Johnson
1998). In addition, some large school districts, such as Atlanta, built new elemen-
tary schools without playgrounds (“Schools becoming all work and no play,” 2001).
This led to a general trend such that, 5–10 years ago, 40 % of US school districts re-
duced or eliminated recess to devote more time to teaching and learning (Zygmunt-
Fillwalk and Bilello 2005). Many school systems have abolished recess since 1989
(American Association for the Child’s Right to Play, as cited in Pellegrini 1995).
Also in the 1990s, the US Department of Education1 found that only 71 % per-
cent of all American kindergarten classes surveyed reported having a daily recess
period; 14.6 % had recess three to four times per week; 6.7 % had recess one to two
times per week; and 7.7 % did not have recess at all. In terms of the duration of the
recess period, 27 % had 30 min of recess, 67.4 % had 16–30 min, and 6 % had less
than 15 min. Children attending private kindergartens were twice as likely to have
recess as children attending public schools (48.3 % versus 22.2 %).
Likewise, in England, a national survey of recess, called “breaktime,” was con-
ducted by randomly sampling 10 % of all primary and secondary schools. There
1
We acknowledge Ithel Jones for providing these data.
was a 60 % return rate such that 1,500 schools responded (Blatchford and Sumpner
1998). Recess in the UK is enacted in a more uniform manner when compared to the
USA. Schools provide students with breaks in the morning, at lunch time, and in the
afternoon. Although students across all grades received breaks, the duration of the
break periods decreased with age: 93 min for children in infant school (5–7 years of
age), 83 min for junior school (7–11 years of age), and 77 min for secondary school
students (11–16 years of age). Nevertheless, there is also a reduction in recess time
in the UK. Blatchford and Sumpner (1998) found reductions in lunch breaks in 26 %
of infant schools, 38 % of junior schools, and 35 % of secondary schools between
1990 and 1996. Afternoon breaks were eliminated in 12 % of infant schools, 27 %
of junior schools, and 14 % of secondary schools. These data speak to the trend of
decreasing break times across a variety of age ranges.
The trend for reducing or eliminating recess time accelerated in the US when
No Child Left Behind passed in 2001, and it still continues. Although 83–88 % of
public schools report that they offer recess (National Center for Education Statis-
tics, 2006), it usually lasts only 10–15 min at most (Jarrett and Waite-Stupiansky
2009). Legislative pressures continue to increase instructional time and minimize
unstructured play time (Fedewa and Ahn 2011), and thus 40 % of public schools
either eliminated or are planning to eliminate at least one recess period from the
school day (Bland 2005; G. Klein 2006). Furthermore, only 18 % of states require
elementary schools to provide daily recess, and there are exemptions in half of these
states (National Association for Sport and Physical Education and American Heart
Association 2010).
The data point to a general trend of reductions in recess. However, these stud-
ies are hard to compare to one another for multiple reasons. First, having a policy
for recess does not necessarily mean that recess will be implemented in practice
(Jarrett and Waite-Stupiansky 2009). Second, there is a wide degree of variation
among schools with regard to recess. Although recess is present in most elementary
schools, what is considered recess varies from school to school. The number and
duration of recess periods per day or per week differs. In addition, the supervision
and adult-directed behavior during these periods may be different, such that what
is reported as recess time may not constitute unstructured free time. Finally, some
schools report that children have recess when it is provided only once per week
or when it lasts less than 15 min (Dills et al. 2011; National Center for Education
Statistics 2006; Pellegrini 2005). Despite the challenges in interpreting this data, a
clear trend still emerges: Recess time is being reduced. Since the late 1970s, chil-
dren have lost 12 h/week in free time, including a 25 % decrease in play and a 50 %
decrease in unstructured outdoor activities (Juster et al. 2004; Wingert 2000).
The data also lead us to consider a few interesting points. First, only 70 % of
kindergarten-aged children receive daily recess. This is surprising considering that
free play during the kindergarten years is important for learning and development
(Bateson 2005; Bergen 1998). Second, private schools were more likely to provide
recess than public schools. In fact, public schools with students from low socioeco-
nomic backgrounds and with larger populations of minority students are the most
likely to cut recess (Barros et al. 2009). We will examine this point further later on.
Finally, another point to consider is that British children have much more recess
than their American counterparts, and the duration of their break periods seems
more sensitive to the maturity of the students. However, like in the US, recess time
in England is also decreasing. This is not simply a national issue, but is an interna-
tional issue as well.
Arguments Against Recess
The history of the erosion of recess can likely be explained by the political push to
increase achievement by maximizing academic time in classrooms. Recess is an
easy target for reduction, because it is a break from what is typically considered the
most serious work of the day: reading, writing, and arithmetic. In addition, many
children voice that recess is their favorite part of the day, and there is even a cartoon
TV show for kids called Recess! This reinforces the popular notion that recess is
trivial and not worthy of serious academic and scientific attention. This perception
has led many schools to question the role of recess in the school day. Next, we out-
line some of the arguments against including and increasing recess time.
Maximizing Instructional Time Increases Achievement
One of the most powerful forces driving school policy today is to increase achieve-
ment. In line with this, many politicians, superintendents, and school principals of-
ten argue that recess is a waste of valuable time that could be more profitably spent
on instruction. It is often argued that recess can disrupt sustained concentration,
work, and classroom patterns (see Blatchford and Sumpner 1998; Pellegrini 1995).
The increased instructional time should, commonsensically, have a positive effect
on achievement (“No Time for Play,” 2001). Furthermore, if recess takes time away
from learning and has a negative effect on achievement, states can reduce its time
or funding (Schacter 2005).
Such an argument demonstrates that politicians and school officials are taking
active measures to promote achievement. Questioning the role of recess in primary
school education is similar to how the role of children’s play has been questioned
by some early childhood educators. Work is often perceived as being positive be-
cause it is productive, whereas play and leisure (and as an extension, recess) are
more negatively perceived. This perception is partially rooted in the Puritan/Calvin-
ist ethic of America and much of the Anglo-Saxon world (e.g., Sutton-Smith et al.
1999; Tawney 1969).
There are also origins of this perception that stem from a variety of different cul-
tures. The positive role of labor and work was stressed by Karl Marx (1906), who
argued that one’s labor defined and formed one’s consciousness and worth. Marx’s
notion of “unearned increment” argued that benefits could not be accrued without
engagement in labor. China’s Mao Tse-Tung also stressed the benefits of manual
labor over intellectual activity during the Cultural Revolution (“Great cultural revo-
lution in progress: Workers’ Mao Tse-Tung’s thought propaganda teams in colleges
and schools,” 1968). Those in Mao’s China who engaged in activities of the mind
were “re-educated.” Thus, a long history in a variety of cultures documents the
appeal of valuing work over less visibly “productive” activities. Bertrand Russell
(1932/1972) referred to this bias as the “cult of efficiency.”
Based on this general leaning toward work being preferable over play and lei-
sure time, it seems a logical extension to argue that reducing recess and break times
should increase achievement. Arguing for reduced recess time can send a message
of “tough love” and concrete plans to increase assessment scores. Although it seems
intuitively correct, the scientific evidence does not support the notion that eliminat-
ing recess increases achievement (in fact, scientific evidence documents the oppo-
site, as described below). Children are a vulnerable population, and it rests with re-
search experts, parents, guardians, taxpayers, and other concerned citizens to exert
pressure against policies that are not based on empirical data. Just as accountability
and evidence-based instruction are required in academic areas (Jarrett and Maxwell
2000), decisions regarding the educational policies of recess should likewise be
evidence-based to ensure tax and tuition dollars and student and teacher time are
spent on effective, research-based practices.
Bullying Occurs During Recess
Another reason that some individuals and organizations advocate for reducing or
eliminating recess, especially playground recess, is the perception that this is where
peer conflict and bullying takes place. Although it is certainly the case that bullying
occurs on playgrounds, it is also the case that bullying occurs in a wide variety of
settings, such as cafeterias, hallways, bathrooms, and locker rooms. The common-
ality among all of these locations is that there is often little to no adult supervision
(Pellegrini 2005).
Despite the limited supervision, the base rate of aggression on playgrounds is low
(Pellegrini 1992; Pellegrini and Glickman 1989). On preschool and primary school
playgrounds in many countries, such as Canada, the USA, and the UK, physical
and verbal aggression account for less than 2 % of all behavior observed (Pellegrini
1995; Smith and Connolly 1980). Thus, aggression tends to be the exception rather
than the norm. These statistics are not intended to diminish the importance of bully-
ing prevention. There are many cases of bullying that can have damaging effects on
children and adolescents because, although overall aggression rates may be low, the
aggression can have a high intensity level and result in grave consequences. Like
other forms of school violence, such as the frequently observed school shootings
and suicides, extreme violence does not happen often but can still result in people
getting hurt.
It is clear that bullying is an important issue that should receive serious con-
sideration and action, but reducing recess will not eliminate the problem of bully-
ing. Instead, more adult supervision of recess periods, like adult supervision of the
cafeteria and hallways, can have a potent effect on dampening aggression. When
examining supervision during recess (when supervision exists), teachers assumed
responsibility in 50 % of the cases, and in 36 % of the cases teachers’ aides super-
vised. Of these aides, 86 % had no formal training for supervision (NAESP 1989,
as cited in Pellegrini 1995). Training is not a trivial issue: A well-trained supervisor
can support children’s positive social interactions and guard against aggression and
bullying.
Although aggression and bullying are serious issues that can occur in playground
environments, we argue that recess is still important because it is one of the few
times during the school day when children have the opportunity to interact with their
peers on their own terms. As we will describe, such opportunities allow children to
learn and practice social skills, such as cooperation, compromise, dispute resolu-
tion, and inhibiting aggression. Although these skills can be taught in lectures and
lessons, recess provides opportunities for children to practice in real-life settings.
Replacing Recess with Physical Education
Another argument for decreasing recess time is that recess can be replaced by physi-
cal education classes. Although it may make sense that physical education would
provide a structured environment during which children can engage in physical
activity to provide a break from academic demands and “blow off steam,” it is not a
true “break.” Physical education, like other instructional disciplines, is a curricular
area. It is a class in which students receive instruction on physical activity, fit-
ness, and health; develop physical competence; and develop cognitive understand-
ings about physical activity. These skills help students adopt healthy and active
lifestyles. Physical education rightfully imposes rigorous demands on children and
adolescents to build and stretch their skills, and physical education teachers adhere
to specific standards (CDCP 2010; Council on Physical Education and Children,
CPEC, 2001).
Physical education is different from recess. Physical education classes do not
necessarily provide a break from stringent instructional regimens. Physical edu-
cation provides sequenced curricular lessons where the activities and games are
structured and adult-directed. Recess does provide a break because children have
the option of choosing their preferred activities. Recess provides unstructured play
time in which children develop their own fair rules for play, practice and use skills,
and make their own choices. Thus, physical education and recess offer differential
benefits (CPEC 2001; Jarrett and Maxwell 2005). In fact, both physical education
and recess are recommended as regular parts of the elementary school curriculum,
and one cannot be substituted for the other (Dills et al. 2011).
Another argument for replacing recess with physical education is that children
need to release energy through physical exercise. As an anecdotal example, one of
us (Pellegrini) and Benjamin Canada (then superintendent of the Atlanta Public

Schools) discussed the role of recess in schools on the Good Morning America
television show. Mr. Canada made national news for his policy of eliminating re-
cess in Atlanta schools and replacing it with physical education. He claimed this
move raised achievement scores because children did not waste time by “hang-
ing on monkey bars,” and that they could “blow off steam” in physical education.
However, no real statistics of achievement data were provided. To our knowledge,
there are no hard data to support such a claim. Arguments that physical education
helps children to release energy also do not have strong empirical and scientific
credibility (Evans and Pellegrini 1997). Again, policy decisions should be based on
practices that have scientific merit, and utilizing arguments without such evidence
does not fit within the theme of evidence-based practice.
Research Supporting the Inclusion of Recess
Even with the arguments against the inclusion of recess, a strong body of research
documents how breaks in the day, as provided by recess, are actually helpful for stu-
dent learning and achievement. This has been demonstrated in numerous controlled
experiments in which children’s attention to academic tasks decreases as a function
of the length of time they are deprived of a break. Correspondingly, children are
more attentive after recess than before. In this section, we outline the theory and
data that support the inclusion of recess.
Classic Scholars
Despite the aforementioned view that individuals are more efficient with longer
and more intense work periods (in line with Russell’s “cult of efficiency”), clas-
sic scholars support the notion that there is real value in leisure and play. Bertrand
Russell, arguably one of the most productive and original scholars of the twentieth
century, was an empiricist who emphasized generating and testing hypotheses using
rigorous scientific methods (Russell 1931/1959). In his essay In Praise of Idleness,
Russell argues for the importance of break times (Russell 1932/1972, pp. 9–10):
I think there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the
belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial coun-
tries is quite different from what has been preached…I hope that after reading the following
pages, the leaders of the YMCA will start a campaign to induce young men to do nothing.
If so, I shall not have lived in vain.
Although Russell’s argument can be applied to school settings, it is aimed at the role
of work and leisure for modern society. Russell’s use of the term “idleness” mirrors
our definition of play: “a capacity for light-heartedness and play” (p. 24). Such be-
havior is what occurs during recess. Russell’s larger point is that there are benefits
in leisure to society’s economic well-being. Specifically, he suggested that the work
day be reduced to 4 h (although, note that this was written in 1932) to enable people
to have time for leisure activities, such as playing games, dancing, listening to mu-
sic, and going to the movies. For Russell, having increased leisure time would also
produce benefits because people might choose to spend their time learning more
about their careers and professions, continuing their education in related fields, or
volunteering for public causes. Therefore, increased leisure time would result in
society becoming a better, more productive place (Russell 1932/1972). Historians,
such as Johan Huizinga (Huizinga 1939), also made the connection between play
and leisure and the flourishing of arts and civilization.
Another valuable point about Russell’s quote is that it forces us to reconcile an
important educational conundrum. On the one hand, we have calls for more play
and leisure time in school, but on the other, we have the very real problem of de-
clining levels of achievement. This apparent contradiction begs serious attention,
given the stature of the person advocating more leisure time. Russell’s solution to
the problem as it might relate to schools and recess (his solutions dealt mostly with
the economics of the duration of the work day) proposed that leisure time results
in “happy lives” instead of the “frayed nerves” associated with being overworked.
Happy people live better, and indeed more productive, lives.
Before Russell’s time, others also emphasized the importance of play and games.
Thomas Hughes (1895) famously praised the moral instruction afforded by games
in childhood. In his book, Tom Brown’s School Days, Hughes discussed how young-
sters learned moral and social lessons when playing games at Rugby School. His
views are encapsulated in this often cited quotation:
You say you don’t see much in it all; nothing but a struggling mass of boys, and a leather
ball, which seems to excite them to a great furry, as a red rag does a bull. My dear sir, a
battle would look much the same to see, except that the boys would be men, and the balls
iron; but a battle would be worth your looking at for all that, and so is a football match. You
can’t be expected to appreciate the delicate strokes of play, the turns by which the game is
lost and won,–it takes an old player to do that, but the broad philosophy of football, you can
understand if you will. (p. 99)
According to Hughes, the character and social skills that children develop when
playing rugby can be compared to those required when leading men in battle. The
lessons learned on the playing fields at Rugby generalize to Waterloo. Interestingly,
Hughes’ view of games and play is much more behavioral than that of Russell. For
Hughes, there are specific skills and attitudes associated with games. This perspec-
tive is very similar to the views espoused by ethologists who study the play of non-
human and human animals and make inferences about the value of play fighting, for
example, in males’ later fighting and hunting ability (Smith 1988).
The Benefits of Play
A primary reason for why recess is beneficial is that it allows time for children to en-
gage in unstructured, self-directed play that enables them to explore different roles
and skills (Waite-Stupiansky and Findlay 2001). A variety of studies document the
importance of play for development and for children’s school performance (Bateson
2005). Traditionally, the deferred benefits of play are gauged in terms of a cost-to-
benefit ratio. This means that play is considered beneficial if the deferred benefits
outweigh the immediate costs.
There is an assumption that play is “costly” for children. This cost is often mea-
sured by the amount of time spent in play (Smith and Dodsworth 1978), energy
expended in play (Pellegrini et al. 1998), or in the dangers inherent in play, such as
injury (Fagen 1981). The few studies examining the costs of play have found that
play is moderately costly in that children spend a substantial portion of their free
time in play (Smith and Dodsworth 1978). Children expend substantial amounts of
stored energy during play: Energy expenditure during outdoor recess exceeds basal
levels by a factor of 7.5 (Pellegrini et al. 1998; Pellegrini and Smith 1998). Finally,
childhood injuries can be incurred during play (Fagen 1981).
Despite these costs, there are beneficial outcomes of play. Evolutionary theorists
propose that if a behavior is not beneficial despite its costs, it would not have been
naturally selected for in human evolution (Fagen 1981). Many child development
theories have evidence to support the benefits of play in terms of learning and prac-
ticing the skills necessary for adulthood. For example, playing with dolls may help
prepare a child for parenting roles, and playing with a toy computer may help pre-
pare a child for learning how to use a real computer (Pellegrini 2009).
Another benefit of recess is that it enhances physical fitness. Play behaviors
exhibited during school recess periods are often physically vigorous social play
(Pellegrini 2009). Although few studies have examined the long-term effects of
vigorous physical activity in childhood through adulthood, brief experimental stud-
ies have shown a positive and immediate effect of vigorous physical activity on
cardiovascular fitness (e.g., Simons-Morton et al. 1987). Physical play also stimu-
lates children’s senses as they learn about movement and develop their perceptual
abilities. Play enables children to learn about their bodies, space, and the physical
environment. These experiences go beyond what children can learn from television,
computers, or books (Bergen 1998).
Play helps develop children’s social and emotional skills (Rogers and Sawyers
1988). During social play, children must produce and understand social signals and
learn about peers. Play helps children to manage stress, inhibit aggression, and in-
crease resilience. Social-cognitive skills are enhanced as children enact roles and
behaviors, take perspectives, and utilize imagination, reasoning, and manipulative
skills (Bateson 2005; Bergen 1998; Fein 1979). In short, free play is linked to a va-
riety of physical, social, emotional, and cognitive developmental milestones (Gins-
burg 2007).
During recess, children can engage in free, unstructured play, enabling children
to reap its benefits. Recess has also been associated with a variety of other benefits
for children’s health and development. In the following sections, we describe re-
search that implicates recess in physical health, behavior, social competence, cogni-
tion, and achievement.
Recess and Physical Health
During recess, many children will engage in some sort of physically active play that
enables them to develop health and fitness. In fact, 60 % of children will engage in
some type of active play during recess (Pellegrini and Smith 1993). Some studies
have found elementary-aged students to be even more active during recess than
in physical education classes (Kraft 1989). In recess, physical activity tends to be
highest during the first 6–7 min on the playground, and then activity levels start to
decline. However, the duration and intensity of physical activity will increase if
recess is delayed (Pellegrini and Davis 1993; Smith and Hagan 1980). These stud-
ies indicate that recess, especially outdoor recess, is a setting in which children are
physically active.
Physical activity during recess brings a variety of health benefits such as aerobic
endurance, muscular strength, coordination, and weight control (CDCP 2010; Dale
et al. 2000). When considering that obesity rates in the USA have tripled since 1970
and that childhood obesity, in particular, is on the rise, providing children opportu-
nities to be active would help offset this epidemic. This would also reduce the health
problems associated with obesity, which include hypertension, diabetes, and high
cholesterol (Waite-Stupiansky and Findlay 2001).
Some researchers have examined whether children would compensate for low
levels of physical activity during the school day by engaging in more physical ac-
tivity after school. However, children do not compensate. On days that children
are less physically active at school, they are less physically active at home in the
afternoon and evening. On days that children are more physically active during the
school day, they also tend to be more physically active at home (Dale et al. 2000).
Thus, providing opportunities for physical activity during the school day, such as
what occurs during recess, can help to improve children’s overall well-being in
terms of health and fitness.
Recess and Classroom Behavior
Recess has been implicated in improved classroom behavior. A variety of inter-

vention and non-intervention studies document that children’s fidgeting increases
prior to recess, and decreases after recess. When recess is delayed (meaning that the
instructional time preceding recess is longer), fidgeting increases as a function of
the length of the delay. In addition, when children engage in moderately vigorous
play during recess, it is associated with less fidgeting after recess (Jarrett et al. 1998;
Pellegrini and Davis 1993; Pellegrini et al. 1995).
Students who have recess are more likely to be on-task in the classroom com-
pared to students who do not receive recess (Pellegrini et al. 1995). Furthermore,
when recess breaks are scheduled so that they occur directly before or after an aca-
demic lesson, children are more on-task for those lessons (Fagerstrom and Mahoney
2006). This indicates that overall classroom behavior is improved with recess. Even
as little as 15 min of daily recess is linked with improved overall classroom behav-
ior (Barros et al. 2009).
Recess and Social Competence
Another critical benefit to recess is that it can increase children’s social develop-
ment and social competence (CDCP 2010). Social competence refers to a set of
social skills, such as interacting cooperatively with peers, inhibiting antisocial and
aggressive behavior, and having the skills and abilities necessary to form close rela-
tionships (Waters and Sroufe 1983). Recess is important for socialization because it
is one of the few places where children can freely interact, and thus must interpret
and learn from social experiences, as well as confront social conflict (Jambor 1994;
Sutton-Smith 1990). This usually occurs in the context of social games: During
recess, children will organize their own games in which they must negotiate with
other children to set rules, such as which team will go first. These negotiations help
children to respect rules, learn and practice self-discipline, control aggression, re-
solve conflicts, and practice leadership skills (Bishop and Curtis 2001; Jarrett and
Maxwell 2000). As this demonstrates, children’s behavior on playgrounds requires
relatively high levels of social competence.
Friendship and Adjustment Children utilize social competence skills to build
healthy peer relationships (Waters and Sroufe 1983). This happens in the context of
social games, during which children interact with peers in a manner that does not
occur in structured settings (Jarrett and Duckett-Hedgebeth 2003). Building peer
relationships is important because friendships facilitate classroom learning, school
success, and overall adjustment (Coie et al. 1998; Pellegrini 1992). In fact, when
making the transition from preschool to primary school, children experience better
outcomes when they make this transition with a friend (Ladd et al. 1996). Posi-
tive social competence and friendships are also critical for adjustment to school,
especially for boys (Barros et al. 2009; Pellegrini and Bohn 2005). Relationships
play such a critical role because they provide children with positive associations
with school and social-emotional support to relieve stresses associated with school
(Jambor 1994; Ladd et al. 1996; Ladd et al. 1988). Recess may be one of the only
opportunities children have to interact freely with peers to build friendships.
Cooperation and Conflict Resolution As mentioned, recess presents children
with situations in which they must cooperate, avoid conflict, and engage in conflict
resolution, especially when setting rules for games (Rogers and Sawyers 1988).
Children are more likely to develop conflict resolution skills with peers compared
to adults: Children’s interactions with adults tend to be more unilateral, whereas
children are more likely to disagree with their peers. Children are also motivated
to resolve such conflicts: If the conflict is not resolved in a free play situation,
children are at liberty to leave the situation and engage in another activity. Thus,
conflict resolution is necessary for the game or play interaction to continue (Hartup
and Laursen 1993). Such conflict resolution and cooperation also helps to develop
perspective-taking skills as children learn to accommodate others’ viewpoints (Rog-
ers and Sawyers 1988).
School Success Social competence skills, built during recess, are related to overall
success in school. When children are in charge of directing their own behavior and
activities, it is a form of self-determination that leads them to feel control, develop

self-esteem, and develop problem-solving abilities. As another example, children
will often engage in reciprocal social and pretend play during recess, such as rough-
and-tumble play, which predicts social competence, perspective-taking skills, and
hypothetical problem-solving. All of these form the foundation for success in school
(Pellegrini and Smith 1998; Waters and Sroufe 1983).
Recess, Cognition, and Achievement
Aside from building social competence, recess is related to a variety of cognitive

skills. It can aid cognitive performance, learning, and academic behaviors (Jarrett
2002; Pellegrini and Bohn 2005). One of the primary explanations for this comes
from the cognitive principle of massed versus distributed practice.
Massed Versus Distributed Practice One of the arguments for reducing recess
is that its reduction can increase instructional time. Children certainly benefit from
receiving quality instruction, and increasing the number of hours of instruction a
child receives per year may increase learning under many circumstances. The time-
on-task literature in American educational research (see Brophy and Good 1974,
for a summary) communicates that educational attainment is directly and positively
related to the amount of time spent working on tasks. Calls for longer school days
and school years and the elimination of recess are logical extensions of this posi-
tion. However, this is different from the claim that more intense, break-free hours of
instruction will enhance learning. One solution might be a longer school day with
frequent breaks and an extended school year. Such a practice would likely improve
achievement and provide a safe and enriching place for children.
In support of this, a well-known principle of learning is that children (and adults)
learn more quickly and retain information better when their efforts on a task are
distributed, and not massed. What this means is that, when a person is given breaks
during a task rather than having his/her efforts be concentrated and uninterrupted for
a long period of time, productivity and learning increase (Ebbinghaus 1885/1964;
James 1901). Spacing tasks out over time can help make academic work seem less
boring, which improves students’ attention (Dempster 1988). Recess may be benefi-
cial for children in schools because it provides a break from sustained work periods.
Neuroscience research also supports the idea that distributed practice facilitates
attention. The brain operates in cycles, during which the efficiency with which it
can process verbal or spatial information decreases. Between cycles, which last ap-
proximately 90–110 min, novelty and rest time are required in order for the brain
to recycle chemicals necessary to form long term memories (Jensen 1998; R. Klein
and Armitage 1979). When an individual is asked to perform a task that requires a
lot of attention, and to do so continuously for a long period of time, the brain be-
comes less and less efficient until it receives a break (Waite-Stupiansky and Findlay
2001). As academic tasks require this type of concentration, it makes sense that
students require breaks to facilitate learning.
The advantage of distributed practice has been specifically addressed by examin-

ing the ways in which children learn numerous school-related tasks, such as learn-
ing native and foreign language vocabulary, recalling a text, and recalling math
facts (see Dempster 1988, for a review). Distributed practice also helps to improve
memory, alertness, achievement, and productivity (Kausler et al. 1990; Toppino
et al. 1991). These laboratory studies yielded reliable and robust effects, document-
ing the efficacy of task spacing on learning. Indeed, the theory has been supported
with humans across the life span, as well as with a variety of other animals.
Whenever a study is conducted, the results tend to be more robust in laboratory
compared to field settings (Dempster 1988). Classroom studies examining massed
versus distributed practice are no exception: These studies are less frequently under-
taken, and they generally produce less impressive results. However, this might oc-
cur because a number of external factors affect classroom learning, such as whether
the task is simple as opposed to complex. Rather than looking only at material
learned, the results of classroom research become more powerful and match those
of the laboratory when examining children’s attention to the task at hand. Attention
increases when tasks are distributed and spaced. Such spacing may help children to
find the tasks less boring. This increased attention may be important to subsequent
learning (Dempster 1988).
Although it might make sense to think that simply changing from one academic
task to another would constitute enough of a break, there is research documenting
that breaks should be more drastic (although how drastic the break may be varies
as a function of development). Simply changing to a different topic of academic
instruction is not enough of a mental change or a physical release to reap the ben-
efits of distributed practice (Ginsburg 2007; Toppino et al. 1991). The reason is that
academic learning usually occurs in sedentary settings where free social interac-
tion between students does not occur. Children habituate to this type of setting and
require more of a physical and social change, as is afforded by free play. The key
is that children require a change to an activity in which they can be self-directed
(Bjorklund and Brown 1998; Pellegrini and Davis 1993).
Given the positive effects of distributed practice on children’s attention, it should
be more readily practiced in classrooms. However, this practice is not utilized as
frequently in schools as would be beneficial for students. One possible explanation
for this disconnect, as suggested by Dempster (1988), is that the complicated con-
tingencies of running a school may not easily accommodate the added complexities
of a distributed practice regimen. There is a simple solution to this conundrum, us-
ing a well-established school institution: recess. Recess provides a break between
school tasks, thus distributing practice on academic work. As theoretical and em-
pirical evidence document that attention and learning increase as a function of dis-
tributed practice, recess has an important place in the school day.
Cognitive Skills That distributed practice is linked to improved attention is impor-
tant for academic learning. Not only is attention important for learning (Dempster
1988) but it can also be used as an index for engagement in academic tasks (e.g.,
Toppino et al. 1991), and it is related to cognitive performance and achievement
(e.g., Rowe and Rowe 1992). Recess is important for attention, because students
(particularly boys and those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD)
are more attentive, productive, and efficient following recess compared to before,
especially when they have a sustained period of outdoor free play. Furthermore,
as the length of a break-free work period increases, students become decreasingly
attentive, productive, and efficient, especially younger children (Holmes et al. 2006;
Jarrett et al. 1998; Pellegrini and Bjorklund 1997; Pellegrini et al. 1995). These data
indicate that breaks can rejuvenate children to help them attend to academic tasks.
As discussed, children are often physically active during recess. Physical activity
has general cognitive benefits for children and is linked to improved learning and
concentration (CDCP 2010; Etnier et al. 1997; Sibley and Etnier 2003). However,
whereas moderately vigorous playground activity is likely to increase attention,
highly vigorous activity may actually decrease attention. Considering that delay-
ing recess can result in more physically vigorous activity, offering frequent, short
breaks for recess and physical activity would be the best way to encourage moder-
ately vigorous activity and maximize children’s attention and learning (Pellegrini
and Davis 1993; Pellegrini et al. 1995).
Achievement When children freely interact with their peers on the playground or
even in other settings (such as playing with blocks), they utilize relatively sophis-
ticated cognitive skills that can help increase academic achievement. For example,
they must follow rules of play and games and use language to negotiate. In addition,
the types of language that children use to negotiate conflicts are similar to the lan-
guages of school instruction (Heath 1983) and literacy (Pellegrini and Galda 1982).
Preschoolers utilize more oral language and a wider array of vocabulary words
when engaging in open-ended activities (Isbell and Raines 1991). Playgrounds
enable multiple opportunities for oral expression, and children will utilize language
from a variety of genres, set rules, and more (Waite-Stupiansky and Findlay 2001).
Other cognitive skills that children learn and practice during recess are problem-
solving skills and creativity. In play, children assemble a skill; play is disassembled
when the skill is completed (Bateson 2005). Through this, and through negotiations
on how to organize and direct their own games, children learn and practice problem-
solving skills (Jarrett and Maxwell 2000; Jensen 1998). In addition, imagination
and creativity are fostered during free play (Bergen 1998; Waite-Stupiansky and
Findlay 2001). Children utilize these cognitive resources during play in an effort
to meet the demands of interaction, conflict, and compromise. They are motivated
because children generally enjoy interacting with peers at recess, and will try their
best to initiate and sustain play. For example, they may have to compromise (share
a toy or a turn) to continue to play with their best friend.
In fact, studies demonstrate that the activities associated with recess predict
academic achievement in general. First, physical activity and fitness, especially
aerobic exercise, improve achievement in mathematics, general intelligence, and
reading (CDCP 2010; Fedewa and Ahn 2011; Hillman et al. 2008). Considering
that moderate levels of physical activity occur on the playground, this can help
improve achievement. Second, as previously mentioned, interacting with peers
requires utilizing language and perspective-taking skills, which are related to
classroom achievement (Bjorklund and Pellegrini 2000). Third, kindergarteners’
social behavior on the playground predicts academic achievement (as measured

by a standardized test) in first grade, even after statistically controlling for chil-
dren’s academic achievement in kindergarten. During recess, children who interact
more with adults have lower achievement scores compared to those who interact
with peers. Thus, there is predictive academic value in what kindergarten children
do at recess, beyond the information provided in kindergarteners’ basic academic
achievement (Pellegrini and Bjorklund 1997). All of this research supports the no-
tion that recess does not negatively affect achievement, but may actually improve it.
Developmental Considerations in Relation to Recess

and Achievement
When considering the effects of recess on children’s social development and

achievement, it is critical to account for age-related factors. For example, it is un-
controversial that young children think differently than older children, who in turn
think differently than adults. Regardless of the much-debated underlying reasons
for these cognitive differences (see Bjorklund 2004), the result is that younger chil-
dren learn most things at a slower rate than older children. Despite young children’s
limitations, research over the past several decades demonstrates that preschool and
school-age children can be taught skills that are spontaneously acquired only by
older children, providing the impression that more rigorous instruction during the
early grades will result in enhanced cognition. It is from this perspective that recess
is seen as a superfluous activity, perhaps necessary to some degree to combat bore-
dom, but an essentially non-productive part of the school day.
An alternative developmental perspective holds that children’s immature cogni-
tions are well-suited to the particular demands of childhood. This means that imma-
turity is not something to overcome, but rather children’s immature nervous systems
may be adapted to deal effectively with the cognitive demands they face in their
daily lives at particular developmental periods. This is consistent with the view that
behaviors and cognitions within early childhood have a value or function inherent
to that period and should not be considered “imperfect” variants of adult behavior
(Bateson 1981; Bjorklund and Pellegrini 2002). Therefore, young children’s cogni-
tions are particularly well-suited to learn and practice skills in informal, free-play
settings. For example, children will often overestimate their cognitive skills (Yussen
and Levy 1975) and social status (Smith and Boulton 1990), but this overestimation
helps children to persist at challenging tasks, leading to perceived success and thus
competence (Bandura 1997).
This developmental perspective, based on Bjorklund’s theory of “cognitive imma-
turity” (Bjorklund and Green 1992), supports the notion that the facilitative effects of
breaks between periods of intense work should be greater for younger than for older
children. From this position, young children do not process most information as ef-
fectively as older children (Pellegrini and Bjorklund 1997; Piaget 1983). This occurs
because young children’s nervous systems are not as developmentally mature, and
they have not had as many experiences upon which to build their prior knowledge.
The immaturity of their nervous systems and lack of experiences render them
unable to perform higher-level cognitive tasks with the same efficiency as older
children and adults, which has a direct effect on their educability (Bjorklund 2004;
Siegler 1991). Young children must devote greater amounts of cognitive effort to
their studies, which makes it challenging for them to focus attention for a long
period of time. As a result, young children are especially susceptible to cognitive
interference and experience the greatest gains from breaks between focused intel-
lectual activities, which recess provides (Pellegrini and Bjorklund 1997).
Evidence in support of this hypothesis is drawn from the literature on memo-
ry and cognitive inhibition. Research using a wide range of tasks has shown that,
with age, children are increasingly able to inhibit task-irrelevant thoughts and resist
interference from unrelated stimuli (e.g., Bjorklund and Harnishfeger 1990; Har-
nishfeger and Pope 1996; Lorsbach and Reimer 1997). Inhibition abilities permit
children to focus on task-relevant information, which is of central importance to
attention and working memory. Young children experience difficulty keeping ex-
traneous information from entering their short-term memory stores. As a result,
their working memories are often cluttered with irrelevant information, leaving less
mental space for task-relevant information or for the execution of cognitive strate-
gies (e.g., Bjorklund and Harnishfeger 1990).
From this perspective, there may be a general increase in interference when
younger children perform a series of highly focused tasks, regardless of the na-
ture of those tasks. Although one would predict that changing from one type of
focused activity to another would yield some cognitive benefit, children (especially
young children) may experience a continued buildup of interference with repeated
performance of even different highly focused tasks. Thus, they would experience
greater benefit from a drastic change in activity, which is afforded by recess. This
assertion is consistent with the evidence that younger children may require a greater
change in activity or stimulus materials before they experience a release from inter-
ference (e.g., see Pellegrini and Bjorklund 1997). Interference makes school learn-
ing particularly difficult for young elementary school children, and opportunities
to engage in non-focused, nonintellectual activities should afford them the needed
respite to “re-energize” their nervous systems. Consistent with this reasoning, the
unstructured play that occurs during recess periods across the school day should
minimize cognitive interference and maximize learning and achievement (Toppino
et al. 1991). Thus, recess serves a critical role in the development of young children.
Developmental Considerations Regarding Standardized Testing
An important developmental consideration is that utilizing standardized tests to

make decisions regarding educational policy is more appropriate for some age
groups than for others. There is a movement to administer standardized tests to
children as early as kindergarten, but research demonstrates that young children are
unreliable test takers, meaning that they tend not to perform consistently across time
(Messick 1983). For example, preschoolers tend to demonstrate greater variability
in test-retest reliability for standardized tests than older children. This is because
young children fatigue more quickly, are more distractible, possess limited attention
spans, and are less tolerant of frustration than older students (Bracken et al. 1991;
Bracken and Walker 1997; Nagle 2000).
This exemplifies a larger point that, although standardized assessments are
valuable, they are limited in their predictive and explanatory power, especially for
young children (Wentzel 1991). Seemingly harmless environmental factors can lead
to swings in motivation and performance in young children, supporting the notion
that young children are unreliable test takers. And, reliability is necessary in order
to have a valid assessment: If test scores change from day to day (i.e., are unreli-
able) they tell us nothing about the truthfulness of the scores (i.e., validity). That
children, especially young ones, are unreliable test takers is an important reason for
educators to use a number of different assessment strategies. That is, tests can and
should be used, but in conjunction with other measures such as attendance, grades,
teacher assessments, and behavioral observations of competence. When all of these
measures are aggregated we get a more valid picture of children’s performance and
achievement (Cronbach 1971).
What this research means is that policy decisions regarding recess should not
be made on standardized test results alone. Research supports the conclusion that
recess and free play are related to well-being, achievement, and social competence
(Pellegrini 2005). Importantly, researchers came to this conclusion by conducting a
number of different studies that utilize a variety of methodologies. This is critical,
because their results provide converging evidence that recess, especially for young
children, is beneficial for development.
Recess also provides valuable time for teachers and other school personnel to ob-
serve children freely interacting with peers in an undirected environment other than
the classroom. Teachers can learn about their students’ propensities toward lead-
ership, prosocial behaviors, social isolation, and aggression. This can help teach-
ers understand their students better, facilitate learning, and offer more knowledge
when intervening in certain situations (Hartle et al. 1994; Pellegrini and Bjorklund
1996). However, also recall that children’s behavior on the playground is a powerful
predictor of achievement (Pellegrini 1992; Pellegrini and Bjorklund 1997), just as
social competence is a predictor of school performance and adjustment (Pellegrini
et al. 1998; Waters and Sroufe 1983). Thus, not only does recess afford an oppor-
tunity for teachers to learn more about their students, it also enables them to gain
valuable converging or diverging evidence for achievement scores.
Conclusions
In this chapter, we mapped the basic territory in the recess debate. Recess, like
play in young children, is debased because it is assumed to be a waste of time—
time that could be more “efficiently” spent. However, the counter-argument, that
recess is helpful for development and learning, is supported by a large body of
theoretical and empirical research. The research documents the variety of cognitive,
social-emotional, and physical benefits of recess (Jarrett and Waite-Stupiansky

2009; Pellegrini and Bohn 2005; Pellegrini and Smith 1993). It is critical that any
educational policy decisions be based upon evidence-based research, as is being
required for instructional practices. We urge those on both sides of the recess debate
to provide sound theoretical and empirical support for their arguments to best serve
our children and their learning in schools. Based on the theory and data, there is
clear evidence that recess has beneficial effects on children’s physical health, be-
havior, social competence, and academic performance.
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Chapter 13
Playground Conflicts: Everyday Opportunities
for Children to Manage Conflict
Beth Doll and Susan Churchill Sarver
Playground Conflicts: Everyday Opportunities for

Children to Master Conflict Management
The multiple chapters in this volume address issues of human conflict including re-
lations between conflict and mental health, jurisprudence, and international atroci-
ties. This chapter addresses the conflicts of children and, in particular, the interrela-
tions between school playground practices and the peer conflicts that occur on these
playgrounds. We view these as everyday opportunities for children to learn about
conflict and its resolution. Because children’s school playground experiences are
less constrained by adult oversight than other school situations in which children
commonly find themselves, children are more likely to encounter conflicts with
peers on playgrounds and, when conflicts occur, have less adult coaching and as-
sistance in resolving them. Simultaneously, school playgrounds are highly valued
by children because they provide very enjoyable opportunities to make friends, be
with friends, and engage in peer play. Consequently, children are very motivated
to fix any peer conflicts that might interrupt their play or result in their disciplin-
ary removal from the playground. Thus, children on playgrounds gain considerable
practice in managing their own peer interactions, such that playgrounds become the
places where the seeds are planted for adult skills in conflict management.
Fortunately, there is a substantial body of developmental research that examines
children’s playground behaviors including their social aggression and social affilia-
tion, and the interactions between these. This research has been nicely summarized
B. Doll ()
Department of Educational Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
Lincoln, NE 68588-0234, USA
e-mail: bdoll2@unl.edu
S. C. Sarver
Deptartment of Child, Youth and Family Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
Lincoln, NE 68583-0801, USA
338 B. Doll and S. C. Sarver
by Ladd (2005) and includes meticulous examinations of children’s sociability, peer

relationships, social competence, and the relation of all of these to children’s de-
velopmental adjustment. Although considerable developmental research has been
conducted on school playgrounds, less research has been conducted about recess
and playground practices. For example, researchers often collect peer interaction
data by observing children while they are outside on the playground, but rarely
do they explore the actual recess and playground characteristics that influence the
peer activities of children. Exceptions are the prominent playground research con-
ducted by Anthony Pellegrini (1995, 2005), Thomas Power, and Steven Leff (Leff
et al. 2004; Leff et al. 2001). An important summary of this work is provided by
Bohn-Gettler and Pellegrini in this volume (Chap. 12). The present chapter raises
a critical question that is often overlooked in existing playground research: “What
can schools do to foster effective playgrounds?” Building on the research describ-
ing children’s peer conflicts and the impact of various recess practices, schools can
alter their playgrounds in ways that foster successful peer experiences, strengthen
children’s capacity for conflict management, contribute to the safety of the school,
and model the societal values that are endorsed in the surrounding community. This
chapter describes a framework for such translational research. We first discuss four
important findings of developmental research related to peer conflict, then describe
our conceptual model for applying this research to schools, and finally describe our
own early efforts to translate playground research into practice.
Developmental Research Examining Playground Conflicts
While the developmental research on children’s peer conflicts is quite useful for
understanding playgrounds, the studies’ results are not always intuitive and their
insights are not always reflected in the daily recess practices of schools. In par-
ticular, four counterintuitive findings related to peer conflict will be emphasized
in this chapter’s discussion of playground practices. First, despite the public per-
ception, conflict and even aggression are relatively infrequent, occurring in fewer
than 2 % of peer interactions on playgrounds (Blatchford et al. 2003; Bohn-Gettler
and Pellegrini this volume; Pellegrini 2005). Regardless, most school playground
handbooks devote the majority of their space to describing clear rules against and
consistent consequences for peer aggression in order to minimize and control peer
conflict. This is a classic example of an availability heuristic (Tversky and Kahn-
eman 1973): Because instances of conflict are more vivid and memorable when
they occur, it is easy to erroneously assume that these are also more prevalent than
instances of positive play and friendships.
Second, peer friendships are integral to, rather than separate from, peer conflicts.
Indeed, most peer conflicts occur between children and their friends (Rizzo 1989),
a reasonable finding considering that children spend most of their playground time
interacting with friends. Peer conflicts can only occur when children are together
(Doll and Brehm 2010). Of course, the same is true for adults; constructive conflict
13 Playground Conflicts: Everyday Opportunities for Children to Manage Conflict 339
engagements have the potential to deepen adult friendships (Weinstock and Bond
2000). A second reason that friendships are relevant to conflicts is that friendships
act as motivators prompting children to resolve conflicts because they want to re-
pair the friendship. Still, school playground handbooks often underemphasize the
promotion of peer friendships, failing to acknowledge the importance of friends for
conflict prevention and management. Thus, adults slip too easily into polarizing
categorical thinking (Epstein 1998) in which conflicts and friendships are presumed
to be opposite to one another without considering the possibility that these could be
co-occurring.
Third, adult researchers and educators find it difficult to discriminate between
actual conflict and jostling when observing the rough and tumble play of children
on playgrounds (Blatchford et al. 2003; Leff et al. 2004). In both jostling and actual
conflict, children may hit, trip, taunt, or push one another, but during jostling, they
do it for fun and both children enjoy the ritual. Children use and learn important so-
cial skills when they engage in jostling and their social competence can be predicted
by their skill in engaging in this type of play (Pellegrini and Smith 1998). Thus,
eliminating all rough play on school playgrounds could ultimately be detrimental
to children’s acquisition of key social skills. In conflict, unlike jostling, the rough-
ness represents earnest peer aggression and its resolution requires that children step
outside of their anger and compromise with one another. Such conflict is inevitable
when children play together. It might occur because children have competing de-
mands for the same resources or activities, because one child’s actions have inten-
tionally or unintentionally hurt or frustrated another child (emotionally or physi-
cally), or because one child seeks to dominate or control the other. Discerning the
subtle differences in intention, emotional tone, and consequences that characterize
jostling and actual conflict can be challenging for children and nearly impossible
for adults who look in from outside the actual interaction. Without a deliberate ef-
fort to self-correct their egocentricity, adults may selectively perceive the children’s
play and conflict through adult preconceptions about the intent and meaning of
social behaviors (Epley et al. 2004)
Fourth, the occurrence of authentic conflict is not necessarily destructive (Doll
1996; Doll and Brehm 2010). While the occurrence of peer conflicts is often un-
avoidable, children’s behavior in the face of conflict is malleable. Playground expe-
riences allow children opportunities to practice responding to peer conflicts so that
they are better able to manage and understand peer aggression when it occurs. Thus,
one characteristic of effective playgrounds is the students’ successful resolution of
conflicts.
Playground Practices that Influence Children’s Conflicts
This chapter’s discussion of the playground characteristics that affect peer conflict
draws heavily on Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological perspective of children’s de-
velopment. The classic diagram (see Fig. 13.1) represents this perspective as a set
Macrosystem - cultural views
Exosystem - School boards,

Local and district policies
Mesosystem - connecons
between school and district
Microsystems - peer
groups
Child's development
Fig. 13.1 Classic representation of children’s ecosystem
of concentric circles in which the child is surrounded by a microsystem (individual

systems the child is involved in such as a peer group), mesosystems (connections
and overlap between the microsystems), exosystems (systems in which the child
does not have an active voice such as school board and school rules established by
administrators), and macrosystems (cultural and societal guidelines). Typically, the
child is located in the center (the bull’s eye) of the concentric circles. Applying this
perspective to peer conflict on the playground, the policies set by school staff and
administration (typically with limited child input) comprise an exosystem in which
rules, schedules, and disciplinary procedures shape children’s playground experi-
ences. One goal of our translational work has been to influence this exosystem
to be more developmentally sensitive to the age-related shifts in children’s social
competence, peer experiences, and social perspectives. Additionally, the physical
layout of the playground is another exosystem (typically planned by administrators
within the school and district), and it too can directly affect children’s peer interac-
tions and conflict.
Many highly effective playground practices occur within the mesosystems and
exosystems (at the rings of the concentric circles) rather than operating to change
the child (the bull’s eye of the circles). For example, adding more play equipment to
the playground alters the physical system and the additional play opportunities it af-
fords can pull children into more play and less conflict. Still, the traditional diagram
is not entirely sufficient to understand the ecosystem of the playground. A typical
elementary school playground has at least 100 children playing outside at any one
time. While most of these children reside within a common school and community
system, various children may have radically different family and friend systems.
To truly acknowledge the complexity of these overlapping systems, imagine that a
playground’s ecosystem might be captured with 100 sets of concentric circles mov-
ing around a playground and intersecting one another in a dynamic fashion.
Bronfenbrenner emphasized the 2-way interaction of the systems within his
ecological perspective and the school playground is an excellent example of this
transactional phenomenon. Changes to the playground meso- or exosystems have
the potential to alter children’s conflicts on the playground and, in turn, children’s
changing conflicts might alter the entire ecosystem of the playground. The com-
plexity of overlapping systems also means that the same change in routines might
show different results on different playgrounds. Moreover, changes in routines will
inevitably alter children’s play which can, in turn, affect the ways in which routines
are implemented. Thus, playground interventions must always include strategies to
carefully track the actual positive or detrimental impact of changes since these can
reverberate across the system in unanticipated ways. These tracking strategies are
inherent to translational research.
Translating Research into Effective Conflict Management

Practices
A premise of this chapter is that altering school playgrounds and recess practices
(the “rings” of the ecosystem) is an important strategy for strengthening peer expe-
riences. This breaks precedence with earlier interventions that emphasized “change
the child” strategies for solving peer difficulties. Two decades ago, the dominant
paradigm for intervention with children’s peer experiences was social skills train-
ing in which targeted students were taught specific behavioral scripts for acting in
particular social situations (Cowan 2011). However, meta-analyses subsequently
suggested that social skills training yielded disappointingly small changes in chil-
dren’s social successes (Gresham et al. 2001; Luellen 2003). Other efforts intervene
within children’s natural social settings so that there will be more immediate gener-
alization to children’s daily actions and so that the skills taught to the children will
be authentic to the particular playground where they spend their recess. Examples
include classwide programs to strengthen the social competence of all students in
a class such as the Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies Program (PATHS;
Greenberg et al. 1998) or lessons from the Strong Kids curriculum (Merrell et al.
2008) that address students’ competent peer interactions. Evidence-based programs
such as these provide a cohort of students with a common set of social scripts to
guide their interactions in difficult situations. While these strategies still emphasize
changing students, they are more ecosystemic because they advocate for change
within all of the students who play together. Nevertheless, in our early work, it
quickly became apparent that some playground weaknesses were vested in the set-
ting rather than the children themselves (Doll and Brehm 2010). Thus, we argue that
in some cases, interventions could target “fixing the playground” instead of, or in
addition to, student change interventions.
The remainder of this chapter will describe critical steps towards the translation
of research on peer interactions and playground practices into daily routines that
schools can use to enhance the peer experiences and conflict management skills of
children. Converting research findings into effective school playground practices
requires careful attention to (1) assessment strategies that are brief, inexpensive,
and technically sound while also yielding a comprehensive portrait of the existing
playground experiences of children in school; (2) strategies to make sense of the
assessment data given the experiences of adults and the perspective of children who
populate the playground; (3) a conceptual framework for playground interventions
with potential to strengthen the peer experiences of children and plant the seeds for
their development of competent conflict management skills as adults; and (4) prog-
ress monitoring procedures that actively monitor the ongoing status of playground
problems even while the setting-based interventions are designed and custom fit to
a specific playground.
Playground Assessment Strategies As is true for most developmental research,
strategies to strengthen school playgrounds begin with the collection of reliable
data to describe the current status of peer interactions and playground practices.
However, existing research-based protocols for collecting recess data are not eas-
ily adapted to school practice. Dominant strategies have used sociometric surveys
and direct observations of playgrounds but school policies, time constraints, and
conceptual frameworks limit the daily use of these research-based measures (Doll
et al. 2013). Sociometric surveys are simple to collect. A typical sociometric sur-
vey will provide a young child with pictures of peers in their classroom and ask
them about who they play with most often and least often. Older children may be
asked to list the classmates they like to play with, or to select their preferred play
partners from a class list. Mutual child preferences represent friendships while the
total number of choices that a child receives represents that child’s peer status. Still,
child preferences are complex to collate and interpret and, more importantly, they
violate many schools’ values against negative evaluations of children’s classmates
(Bell-Dolan et al. 1989; Cook and Iverson 1993). Many schools now prohibit their
use, because children are asked about negative feelings towards peers. Playground
observations are very time intensive to collect, and they require comprehensive
training to achieve inter-observer reliability (Leff and Lakin 2005). Also, there
is good evidence that multiple observational samples need to be collected before
observations are adequately representative of playground peer experiences (Hintze

and Matthews 2004). Playground observations have shown that children’s social
success and social competence shift depending on the games and routines of the
playground so that observations focusing only on children are insufficient to cap-
ture the full ecosystem of a playground’s peer experiences. Thus, while these are
rigorous research measures for assessing playgrounds, they are not practical for
daily use in schools. In order for playground research to be applied to the daily
practices of schools, it was critically important to find a time-efficient yet reliable
way to describe the adequacy of a particular playground’s peer experiences. And, if
a school did work to improve these peer experiences, it was important that measures
exist to determine whether their efforts had been successful.
To make the characteristics of effective playgrounds concrete, Doll et al. (2010a,
2010b) developed the ClassMaps Surveys (CMS) as anonymous student surveys,
the results of which could be aggregated across all students in a class or grade to
describe their collective peer experiences on the playground. CMS item content
was drawn from developmental research related to three distinct aspects of peer
relationships: the quality of children’s friendships, their judgments about peer ag-
gression, and their worries about peer aggression. Items describing peer friendship
assess students’ sense of a supportive peer community available to assist them in
addressing conflicts with classmates and acting as an incentive to manage conflicts
in ways that do not disrupt their friendships. Peer aggression items assess students’
perceptions of the nature and extent of aggression among their classmates, while
items describing worries about aggression describe the degree to which children are
preoccupied with the possibility of aggression. In their current form, the surveys are
computer-administered (requiring approximately 12 min of computer lab time per
class) and schools can print out a profile of the results immediately. Across multiple
studies and with elementary and middle school students, peer friendship items were
rated most positively by students and the lowest ratings (signifying more problems)
were evident on the peer aggression or aggression worry items (Doll et al. 2009;
Doll et al. 2010a; Doll et al. 2010b). This is consistent with the children’s ambiva-
lence about recess: they very much appreciate opportunities for vigorous play with
their friends, but they also worry about the peer aggression that they encounter.
The CMS peer relationship subscales were systematically refined to ensure that
they were technically sound despite their brevity. First, factor studies of the CMS
were conducted with both elementary (Doll et al. 2009; Doll et al. 2010b) and mid-
dle level students (Doll et al. 2010a). Results verified that the items clustered as
predicted into the three subscales, reaffirming that it would be appropriate to use
subscale means as indices in a playground assessment. For each of these studies,
Alpha Coefficients were computed for the three subscales and ranged from 0.78
to 0.93, signifying adequate internal consistency and contributing to evidence that
the subscale scores would provide reliable indices of students’ experiences of peer
friendships, peer aggression, and worries about aggression. Results of the three
studies showed that gender effects were rarely evident in the subscale means while
significant differences by grade were slightly more common. In one study (Doll
et al. 2010b), third graders were more worried about peer aggression than fifth
graders. In a second study (Doll et al. 2010a), seventh graders reported more peer
aggression during their recess than sixth or eighth graders. In all cases, the effect
sizes were quite small with partial eta2 less than 0.02 (Cohen 1992).
A recent examination of three school playgrounds provided some preliminary
evidence that the CMS is able to detect important differences between one play-
ground and another (Doll et al. 2012). Compared to the other two schools in the
study, one school was quite difficult to work with. That school’s playground poli-
cies were top-down and imposed on classrooms from the principal’s office and the
policies were not always fully implemented. These weaknesses were also captured
in observation data in which a partial-interval recording procedure showed that
children were observed playing together less often than in the other two schools.
Children’s reports using the CMS also showed more frequent conflict in the difficult
school and indicated that the children worried more about peer aggression. This has
provided preliminary evidence that the CMS is able to detect differences between
playgrounds, and to identify playground problems that merit intervention.
Computer-administered surveys are time efficient but may be developmentally
inappropriate for younger children. Nevertheless, it is still quite possible to gather
data about the playground from the children’s perspective. For example, this chap-
ter’s second author consulted with an elementary school that was converting its
traditional playground into an outdoor classroom. The administration of the school
determined that in addition to the traditional use of the playground for recess, it
would be used as an outdoor space supporting part of the school’s curriculum. As
is typical, original plans were to consult with teachers, administrators, and parents
about the changes. Sarver convinced the school to also attend to the child perspec-
tive, convening focus groups in which children in the school were given large pieces
of paper and asked to draw what they wanted on the playground. Subsequently,
the children were asked open-ended questions about the playground changes they
wanted. The children’s suggestions were categorized into three general sets–physi-
cal activities (involving risk), interactive materials, and places to socialize. For ex-
ample, children requested physically active equipment and areas such as swings,
a sand box, a climbing structure, tire swings, slides, a bounce house, logs, and a
miniature playhouse with a slide on the roof. They also asked for interactive ma-
terials for investigation and learning such as a pond or swimming pool and places
to play with rocks, fish, frogs, snakes, and other flora and fauna. Finally, children
requested places for peer interaction: benches and tables, places to rest, places to eat
lunch outside in nice weather, a movie theater, walking paths, and grassy areas for
sitting. Their suggestions varied quite dramatically from their existing playground
that had traditional playground equipment and a very large gravel area. The chil-
dren’s requests also demonstrated a very different perspective from administrators.
As would be expected, the principal was not as excited as the children about frogs,
snakes and a slide on the playhouse roof. Still, other aspects of the children’s sug-
gestions did alter the adults’ plans and, in particular, highlighted the importance of
providing places for peer interaction. Thus, the children’s focus groups provided
adults with children’s perspectives about the playground changes that were most
important to them.
Making Sense of Playground Data Measures, in and of themselves, are not that
exciting to schools. Ultimately, the work towards creating brief, practical, and tech-
nically sound measures is important only because these provide a data-based portrait
of a specific playground in a specific school. When the measures are grounded in
developmental research on effective playgrounds, they focus the school’s attention
on important features that are likely to affect the quality of children’s peer experi-
ences. We have worked to develop measures that incorporate positive peer experi-
ences and children’s strengths into a data-based portrait, so that schools remember
to attend to positive as well as negative play. When such measures have appropriate
reliability and validity, it is possible to use them as markers describing the amount
or quality of the playground experiences. Using the markers, schools can define
their goals for the playground change with clarity and specificity, and provide a
baseline against which progress towards this data-based goal can be assessed. Thus,
the data-based portrait provided by the measures make the developmentally rel-
evant characteristics of a school’s playground visible, available for inspection by
adults in schools so that they can work to alter playground settings in ways that
strengthen children’s peer experiences.
Interpreting the data-based portrait of a school playground must occur within
the school’s very pragmatic and real-time frame of reference, and this is different
from what occurs in traditional developmental research. In developmental research
on school playgrounds, the research questions generally compare means and vari-
ance in key variables under different playground conditions, or develop norms to
describe what is typical on a representative sample of playgrounds. Research ques-
tions might ask whether differences are significant when comparing two or more
playground practices. When applying developmental research to a particular play-
ground, the questions of interest shift. Schools compare the data-based portrait of
their playground to school values representing what they believe ought to occur
within children’s peer experiences. They speculate about the playground practices
that might be contributing to disturbances such as frequent playground accidents or
peer conflict and arguments, and they want to know whether modified playground
practices make a difference large enough to “solve the problem.”
Above all, it is essential that the data-based portrait be easily understood by
the principal stakeholders of school playgrounds: teachers and playground supervi-
sors, administrators, the students themselves, and their parents. Fundamental to this
understanding is that the data must be described with simplicity, so that even the
youngest student immediately understands the meaning of the numbers or lists, and
their attention can quickly turn towards forming opinions about the data that have
been culled from the measures: Are the data accurate? What problems are described
in the data? And how would the data look if the playground became more effec-
tive? Equally critical, the data must describe playground events and characteristics
that are immediately recognized as compelling and worthy of attention. When the
measures provide a clear description of playground characteristics that obviously
matter, the adults’ attention will turn towards understanding why the playground is
this way and what to do about it. Thus, the face validity of the data is all-important
in translational research.
Because school playgrounds are human systems, it is important to understand

playground routines and practices through the perspectives of all of the various
stakeholders that influence playground events. In particular, the children are often
overlooked members of the playground who have important insight into playground
events. To truly capitalize on data from the CMS, we typically show the data graphs
to the students in a classroom meeting (Doll 2013). We ask the children’s opin-
ions about the data’s accuracy and what they think is causing any problems. Their
comments are often insightful. A fourth grader once explained, “I think that there
should always be an odd number of teachers on the playground so that when two
are talking, there is still one left to watch.” The teachers had not noticed that their
attention was wandering so badly. A second grader suggested that an easy way to
reduce fighting at lunchtime recess was to “separate the brothers.” Apparently, twin
brothers often fought bitterly during recess even though they were separated into
different classrooms for instruction. Students also describe innovative solutions for
fixing their playground—identifying confusions over the rules of games, describ-
ing particular times or places or equipment that contribute to problems, or noticing
when the biggest problem is boredom.
Insights of administrators and teachers in a school must also be captured, and
they have distinctive needs. They need to have the data-based portrait in easily
digestible forms, so they can attend to these during the too-brief planning times in
between their teaching duties. Moreover, while they routinely discuss these results
with colleagues, these are generally 15-min discussions. Thus, for the adults in the
school, we have learned to collapse relevant findings of developmental playground
research into five-to-seven key “talking points” that can help them make sense of
their own data. Parents also have important insights. They may be a limited presence
in a school, but they are frequently the children’s primary “friendship coaches,” so
their indirect influence on playground experiences can be quite powerful. Schools
can then combine the insights of the teachers, other adults, students and families
with relevant ideas from the talking points and notes from the classroom meetings
to plan strategies for change.
Intervening When intervening to alter playgrounds, we have emphasized three
aspects of playground mesosystems and exosystems that strongly influence chil-
dren’s peer experiences (Doll and Brehm 2010): the physical context of playgrounds,
the supervisory practices that occur on playgrounds, and the routines and traditions
that characterize the peer culture of schools. Each of these holds important influ-
ence over children’s peer experiences, is alterable in that these can be shifted and
changed in deliberate efforts by the school, and has the potential, through change,
to strengthen peer playground experiences.
The physical layout of playgrounds includes the grounds, locations, equipment,
and games that characterize a playground and within which peer conflicts could
occur. Sufficient playground space makes it possible for groups of children to play
without encroaching on each other’s space. Conflicts can occur when crowded con-
ditions cause children from different games to bump into each other. For example,
one school had been relocated to a temporary building during asbestos removal, and
their temporary playground had a single concrete pad that was shared by children
playing basketball, four square, jump rope, and tetherball. The frequent intrusions
of children or balls into nearby games incited a large number of arguments and con-
flicts, requiring considerable negotiation of new playground practices. School and
class meetings identified ways to adjust the games and establish temporary routines
that fit the smaller playground.
Conflicts are more frequent when playgrounds have too few developmentally
appropriate games for children to play. Often, the adequacy of the playground
equipment can predict the availability of games, as long as these are evaluated with
a developmentally sensitive eye. For example, one fairly affluent school had a large
and attractive playground with colorful swings, slides, a climbing structure, and a
sand box for younger children. However, thoughtful examination showed that there
were very few games for fourth- and fifth-grade students to play. The tetherball poles
had no balls, the four square court was painted on a hill, and the students were not
allowed to climb above the first rung of the climbing equipment. As a result, over a
hundred fourth- and fifth-grade students were crowded onto a poorly marked soccer
field, and the resulting pandemonium contributed to frequent arguments and con-
flicts. An obvious solution was to resupply the playground so that students could
play tetherball and four-square. Another effective solution was offering weekly
“game clinics” in which students were taught new games that could be played as
alternatives to soccer. The broader availability of games for the late elementary
students was instrumental in reducing the number of students playing soccer, and
greatly reducing the frequency of arguments on the playground.
Physical playground arrangements can also promote peer friendships. For ex-
ample, a study of “greening” school grounds in Canada documented an increase in
prosocial behavior after school grounds were naturalized (Bell and Dyment 2006).
Naturalizing school playgrounds typically involves the inclusion of multiple small-
er areas and structures for play, rather than a single large structure or ball court.
These smaller areas facilitate peer interaction and help to minimize conflict. In Bell
and Dyment’s study, children’s play became less hierarchical and was based less
on children’s athletic ability and more on their social competence and imagination
once their playground was greened. Moreover, a greater proportion of children en-
gaged in sustained moderate physical activity after greening compared to before.
The supervisory context describes what adults do to regulate the children’s
peer interactions. Control over playground regulations most often resides with the
school administrators (typically a principal or vice principal) and they are advised
by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (2010) recommendations for
safeguarding the physical safety of the children. (These recommendations are dis-
seminated online in the Public Playground Safety Handbook, http://www.cpsc.gov/
PageFiles/116134/325.pdf.) For example, climbing, chasing, and running may be
forbidden on playgrounds in an attempt to decrease children’s physical injuries. It
is now rare to see merry-go-rounds or open-platform slides on school playgrounds
because these were frequent sites for falls. Climbing structures are engineered to
prevent falls, scrapes, or punctures. Swings almost always have cloth seats that
will not bruise or break bones if they crash into children’s arms and legs. Relevant
to children’s conflicts, physical safety regulations principally prohibit physical ag-

gression of any type.
Questions have been raised about whether this risk-reduction is uniformly posi-
tive since children need frequent opportunities to master ever-more-difficult chal-
lenges in order to foster their emerging sense of competence physically, social-
ly, cognitively, and emotionally. When physically risky tasks are removed from
playgrounds, opportunities are lost for children to experiment independently with
risk. Similarly, when all occasions for peer conflict are controlled on playgrounds,
children lose opportunities to manage their own peer interactions. Specifically, the
prohibition of rough and tumble play (because of its apparent similarity to physi-
cal aggression) can dramatically limit children’s peer interactions. Alternatively,
the addition of noncompetitive games to a playground can create opportunities for
vigorous and challenging play that is simultaneously non-aggressive (Fluegelman
1976). Developing protocols for conflict resolution (rather than a blanket policy of
conflict prohibition) can provide students with direct instruction in managing con-
flicts with peers (Doll and Brehm 2010).
Playground supervisors always enforce rules against peer aggression. While
these playground rules are typically stated in positive language (e.g., “Respect one
another”) the consequences that are imposed emphasize negative contingencies for
rule-violating behaviors. The prototypic response to bad playground behavior is a
call out or warning for a first or minor offense; sitting out (e.g., by a building wall
or tree) for a second or more important offense; and loss of recess privileges for se-
vere or repeated offenses. Of course, the loss of recess privileges, while seemingly
a natural consequence for playground misbehavior, further limits a student’s oppor-
tunities for successful peer interactions. Alternatively, more organized play and less
aggression results when adults are “active supervisors” who circulate throughout
the playground to facilitate games, praise positive behavior, and comment on stu-
dents’ play (Leff et al. 2004).
Finally, the peer context describes the “kidsociety” that populates playgrounds
and within which children create social traditions, hierarchies, and conventions that
are outside of the immediate control of adults because these are often unobserved,
unnoticed, or not understood. For example, children on playgrounds may allocate
certain games to particular spaces, teach each other new games, decide who can
play with whom, and create new rules for games (Armitage 2005; Doll and Brehm
2010). This “playground culture” can cascade down from grade to grade. In almost
every case, interventions to resolve playground disturbances involve reinterpreting
the playground through the eyes of children. If these disturbances are misinterpret-
ed, positive interactions could be mislabeled as negatives and the resulting inter-
ventions could interrupt budding friendships (Jones 2002). Song and Sogo (2010)
explain how this same peer culture can be redirected towards reducing bullying on
playgrounds. They note that peers are present when most bullying occurs on play-
grounds and peers have the potential to intervene on behalf of bullied children. Con-
sequently, within their framework, adults can intentionally create “protective peer
groups” by increasing the number of friendships within the class and by prompting
peers to interrupt bullying when it occurs and providing social and emotional sup-
port to the victims of bullying.
Decisions about whether and how to intervene with playground physical struc-
tures and games, supervisory practices, or peer contexts differ depending on the
shared perspectives of the teachers, administrators, playground supervisors, and
students. Some recommended changes are immediately evident while others may
be less apparent upon initial examination of the data. As an example of an obviously
needed change, some fourth graders explained that they spent most of their recess
arguing over teams, and never had enough time left to play soccer. Their solution
was to craft a simple and fair way to choose teams once a week. Less obvious, a
group of fifth graders convinced their teacher that the reason for the frequent aggres-
sion on their playground was that new students were often left out of the classroom
play and responded by being quite aggressive. The teacher had been blaming the
excluded students for bullying. The eventual recommendation was a new student
welcome program that pulled the excluded students more fully into the classroom’s
play. Both of these are examples of “micro changes” in which simple modifications
in routines and practices hold promise for altering the peer ecosystem of the play-
ground. There are also a growing number of evidence-based programs that schools
can use to intervene with playgrounds (Doll and Brehm 2010). These manualized
programs typically require substantial resources in staff time, program cost, and
staff expertise. However, their impact may be stronger when simple changes in
routines and practices are not sufficiently effective.
Assessing impact Ultimately, the success of playground interventions depends on
whether or not students’ peer experiences improve once the playground changes
are implemented. Assessing impact is essential to the translation of playground
research into daily playground practices. Optimally, schools need to know whether
the playground changes that they have made are responsible for altered peer
experiences. This is possible to assess using rigorous single-subject designs with
continuous monitoring data and graphic analysis conventions (Kennedy 2005).
For example, Murphy (2002) systematically introduced and withdrew classroom
meetings in three different fourth grade classrooms and demonstrated that, in two
of the classrooms, playground problems declined when the meetings were imple-
mented and increased when the meetings were withdrawn. An alternative small-n
design might introduce a changed routine into a classroom’s morning recess for
1 month before introducing the routine into the afternoon recess, and then deter-
mine whether improvements in students’ discipline reports co-occurred with the
introduction of the routine. Still, these designs do not fit seamlessly into school
practices. Schools’ tendencies to make programmatic changes quickly and deci-
sively conflict with the designs’ need to defer intervention changes long enough to
collect adequate baseline data. Schools are also reluctant to systematically imple-
ment and withdraw changes, or to systematically apply changes to each recess
period in turn, as might be required to verify that the impact is attributable to the
changes.
A less optimal but reasonable alternative is for schools to continuously collect

simple playground data, graph the data, and use Response-to-Intervention princi-
ples (Brown-Chidsey and Steege 2005) to discern trends in graphed playground
data. In applying these principles, a discernible difference is confirmed when there
is a change in level between the pre-intervention and post-intervention recess data,
a difference in trend (with improvements occurring more rapidly after interven-
tion), and few non-overlapping data points. Even more convincing, schools can set
a measurable goal describing how data should look for a satisfactory playground.
Adding a goal line to the graph, it is possible to determine whether improvements in
students’ experiences are approaching the goals that the school holds for its recess.
In either single-case designs or Response-to-Intervention assessments, it is essential
that data-collection procedures are brief, simple, and have high face validity. Often
existing data in the school (number of office referrals, number of students “on the
wall” at recess) can be used as continuous monitoring data. In one case, students
in the class were able to collect daily ratings of recess from their classmates, and
the students maintained the database for the teachers. When continuous monitoring
strategies are sufficiently convenient, many schools have been willing to use these
to assess the impact of their playground changes.
A third, less satisfactory procedure requires that schools collect pre- and post-
change measures and compare the two. For example, some classrooms re-adminis-
ter the CMS to verify that the changes they made had an impact on students’ percep-
tions of their peer experiences. This does provide a quick measure of the amount of
improvement, but it does not definitively prove that the playground improvements
were caused by the playground changes that were made. Still, many of the schools
and classrooms comprising our case examples have used this third strategy to assess
the impact of their playground changes. As long as the playground had improved,
they did not need irrefutable evidence that their changed recess routines were re-
sponsible for the improvements.
Next Steps
Based on the work that we have completed to date, we now understand that it
may be possible to represent students’ playground peer experiences through as-
sessments of their friendships, perceptions of peer aggression, and personal worry
about aggression. To the degree that these data operationalize a thoughtful, re-
search-based conceptual framework, their application draws schools’ attention
to aspects of the peer relationships research that they had previously overlooked.
Further, the collection of data describing the playgrounds within this framework
can act as a catalyst for the schools’ reflective decision-making about strategies
and practices that they could implement to strengthen the playground. The use of
classroom meetings is one strategy that has been valuable in securing student in-
sights into the meaning of such playground data; the utility of student insights had
been implied by peer relationships research that emphasized children’s intentions
and context when interpreting children’s peer behaviors. Building on the insights
of students and teachers, the case examples that we have collected—some of which
we have described here—suggest that schools can change playground routines,
sometimes in very simple ways, and these changes can affect students’ social suc-
cess on the playground.
There are clear limitations in our work to date. With the exception of the measure
development studies, our playground initiatives have been a series of case examples
that borrow liberally from procedures in applied behavioral consultation (Bergan
and Kratochwill 1990) but differ in their emphasis on the system of the playground
rather than individual behaviors of children. The vital next step in the CMS re-
search is to move more fully into extended studies of data-based decision-making
as a playground intervention. This is complicated because data collected from any
single playground will be distinctive, and changes in routines and practices will
need to be tailor fit to that playground’s unique needs and contexts. Thus, this inter-
vention strategy resists the uniformity that would be necessary to conduct a large-
sample treatment-control study of its impact. One alternative might be to use small-
n designs to examine the impact of school-specific playground changes because,
with these designs, any playground could act as its own control (Kennedy 2005);
aggregating results across multiple well-designed small-n studies could be a first
step towards evaluating the effectiveness of the data-based decision-making pro-
cess. As another alternative, changes in each playground’s peer experiences could
be assessed using goal attainment scaling (Kirusek and Sherman 1968); for exam-
ple, teachers, administrators, or independent observers could rate the playground’s
change relative to the school’s goal for change using a scale from − 2 (things were
much worse) to 0 (no change was evident) to + 2 (the school’s goal was achieved).
Goal attainment ratings could then be summarized across a large sample of schools
as an examination of the impact that the data-based decision-making procedures
had on playgrounds.
One of the difficulties in using these data-based decision-making models is
that schools are unaccustomed to conducting action research in which data inform
planned changes to the playground which in turn are evaluated by data. Rather than
being recognized as a common-sense practice, the use of data is often seen as an
“expert” skill that depends upon outside consultants’ assistance and that intrudes
into the daily routines of a school. Thus, part of the solution may lie in making
data-use a comfortable and familiar practice of the teachers themselves. Currently,
Doll and her colleagues (Doll et al. 2014) are refining and piloting a curriculum
(NU Data) that prepares teachers and other educators to use data routinely and well
in making decisions about school-based interventions. NU Data includes a set of
web-based resources, seminar materials, and coaching strategies that teach in-ser-
vice teachers and other educators to choose measures for collecting data; organize,
graph, and interpret their data; and use their data to solve problems and make deci-
sions about school practices. Teachers who are familiar with data-based decision-
making practices will be more prepared to use data to modify their school’s play-
ground practices.
This chapter describes a framework for translational research in which adults

make decisions about playground practices using data gathered from children. Play-
grounds provide natural everyday opportunities for children to resolve conflict and
adults’ decisions could strengthen or restrict children’s experiences with peer con-
flict. Optimally, effective school playgrounds would provide fertile social experi-
ences within which children would learn to respond adaptively to conflicts in ways
that protect their friendships and enhance the social experiences of the entire peer
group. Creating these social experiences can be a challenging task for adults who
are predisposed to thinking about strategies for changing children instead of altering
settings. Effective strategies require that they step outside of their adult perceptions
and reimagine the playground as if they were one of the children. To the degree that
they are successful, and that they embed healthy conflict management competen-
cies into children’s everyday interactions, they can plant the seeds for the children’s
subsequent capacities for interacting adaptively with conflict in their adult worlds.
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Index
A Arbitration judicial immunity, 238,

Accountability, 319 239, 241, 246, 251, 252, 253, 254
criminal, 225, 226, 227, 230 hallmarks of, 291
for human rights violations, 228 and cooperation, 325
for mass atrocity, 224, 228 features of, 136
McMahon and Miller’s conception of, 224 private dispute resolution, 292, 293, 299,
Allocation 303
behavior, 4, 5, 11, 18 Criminal justice system, 83, 150, 153, 158,
principles, 5, 13 160, 164
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 66, mental health courts in, 150, 151, 152
67, 68, 69, 74, 143
D
B Dehumanization, 59, 78, 79, 90, 91, 98, 105,
Behavior setting, 74, 77, 78, 79, 90, 117 114, 116, 117
dehumanization in, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, animalistic, 76, 80, 82, 83, 85, 90, 91, 92
81, 82, 86 uniquely human characteristics, 75, 82,
83, 90
C mechanistic, 77, 78, 80, 84, 90, 91
Civil commitment, 128, 136, 137, 149, 155, human nature characteristics, 76, 79,
161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 170, 171, 83, 84
174, 175, 192 types of, 80
Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act psychology of, 65, 66
(CRIPA), 143 Distributed practice, 315, 326
ClassMaps Surveys (CMS), 343, 344, 346, vs. massed practice, 326, 327
350, 351 Drug Treatment Court (DTC), 178, 179, 180
Cognitive processing, 76, 82, 106, 107, 119
analytic, 106, 107 E
configural, 106, 107 Ecological perspective, 339, 341
Conflict resolution, 130, 135, 288 Efficiency, 326
Alternative dispute resolution (ADR), 292, Egalitarianism, 7, 13, 18, 21, 22, 23
293, 300, 301, 303, 304, 307, 309,
310 F
ADR Ethical Canons, 307 Fair Housing Act
arbitration, 237 hostile environments under, 72, 73, 74
Arbitration absolute immunity, 239, Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 238, 248,
241, 243, 244, 250, 251, 253, 268 282, 291
Arbitration arbitral immunity, 238, 239,
251, 255, 269

DOI 10.1007/978-1-4939-0623-9, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
356 Index
G Objectified Body Consciousness Scale

Group membership, 11, 85 (OBCS), 102
Self-Objectification Questionnaire
H (SOQ), 102
Heuristics, 110 social objectification, 115, 117
Hostile environment, 61, 66 unintentional objectification, 100, 118, 119
at school, 69, 71
based upon disability, 66, 67, 68, 69 P
hostile work environments, 61, 66 Physical education, 315, 316
law of, 61, 62, 63 replacing recess with, 320, 321, 324
psychology of, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 90 Playground conflict, 338
theory of, 74, 75, 76 peer conflict, 337, 338, 339, 346
peer friendship, 338, 343
I playground assessment strategies, 342
International criminal court, 226 Police, 161, 165, 171
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Power
Yugoslavia (ICTY), 223, 224 informational power, 9
Involuntary Outpatient Commitment (IOC), legitimate power, 9
137, 138, 139, 140 police power, 149, 150, 152, 153, 160, 161,
164, 174
punishment power, 9
J
referent power, 9
Jurisprudence, 337
reward power, 9
therapeutic, 140, 182, 183, 187, 191
Psychiatric rehabilitation, 126, 127, 129, 130,
applications of, 144
131, 132, 138, 139, 144
concept of, 125
field of inquiry of, 178
Justice R
distributive, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 13 Recess
procedural, 5, 189 and social competence, 325
Recovery movement, 126, 129, 132, 137
Relapse prevention, 128, 129, 130
L
Russell, Bertrand, 319, 321, 322
Lawyer Assistance Programs (LAP), 182
S
M
Severe Mental Illness (SMI), 126, 127, 128,
Mass atrocity, 224, 227
129, 130, 132, 133, 136, 137, 138,
paradox of accountability, 224, 225
144
societal responsibility for mass atrocity,
Sexual harassment, 62, 63, 64, 70, 81, 89,
229, 230, 231, 232
114, 117
state accountability for, 228, 229
Standardized testing, 314
Massed practice, 315, 326
developmental considerations regarding,
Mental Health Court (MHC), 133, 134, 135,
330, 331
138, 140, 190
Stereotypes, 11
Merit, 4, 5, 7, 23
Stereotype content model (SCM), 108
Model Code of Judicial Conduct, 296, 309
T
O
Title IX, 69, 70, 71, 72
Objectification
Title VII, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 68, 69, 73
anti-social objectification, 115, 116
Transitional justice, 226
asocial objectification, 115, 116
instrumentality, 114, 115, 116
intentional objectification, 119 U
self-objectification, 85, 86, 102, 103, Ultimatum game (UG), 8, 12, 14, 15
107, 111

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What are some of the topics discussed in the book?

What are some of the topics discussed in the book?

What are some approaches to conflict resolution mentioned?

What are some approaches to conflict resolution mentioned?

Justice, Conflict and Wellbeing

Brian H. Bornstein • Richard L. Wiener

Justice, Conflict and

ISBN 978-1-4939-0622-2 ISBN 978-1-4939-0623-9 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014943418

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

can be challenging, thereby threatening the wellbeing of professionals who work

Part I Distributive Justice

1 All Else Being Equal: Overcoming the Egalitarian Norm��������������������� 3

2 Cutting Your Cake and Having It Too: Or, Is Equality

Part II Objectification and Discrimination

3 A Psycholegal Model of Hostile Environments: The Role of

4 Exploring the Dark Matter of Objectification���������������������������������������� 97

5 Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Recovery from Severe and

6 Mental Illness, Dangerousness, and Police Power

7 That’s What Friends Are For: Mentors, Lawyers Assistance

Part IV Political Conflict, Policy Solutions, and Citizens’ Well-being

8 After Violent Conflict: Justice, Well-being, and International

9 Complexity of Accountability for Mass Atrocity������������������������������������� 223

Part V Justice Outside of Court: Alternative Dispute Resolution

10 Advancements in Arbitral Immunity and Judicial Review

11 Retired to Greener Pastures: The Public Costs of Private Judging����� 289

Part VI Bringing Well-being to Children in Conflict

12 Recess in Primary School: The Disjuncture Between

13 Playground Conflicts: Everyday Opportunities for

Andrea Avila Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lin-

Gwenith Nuss Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lin-

Brian H. Bornstein, Sarah J. Gervais, Hannah L. Dietrich and Justin

Distributive Justice Theory: Standards for Resource

These principles apply in a number of diverse contexts, such as interpersonal be-

example, the relationship between perceived distributive justice in the workplace

of fairness, which, though interesting, creates an additional complicating factor.

Integrating Power and Distributive Justice

Experiment 1: Power, Distributive Justice, and Group Membership

Participants and Design Participants were 37 undergraduates who received up to

In the out-group condition, participants read:

Results and Discussion

Experiment 2: Power, Distributive Justice, and Merit in Work

Rather than examining subjective power as it varies naturally across different

Table 1.1 Scale reliability

Results and Discussion

Manipulation Checks Several questions assessed participants’ attention to the

Overcoming the Egalitarian Norm In light of the present findings demonstrating

Conclusions When it comes to the allocation of resources, “Is it fair?” represents an

Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimen-

Equality has almost universally been treated as a distributive justice or allocation

where equality is asserted to be fundamental. Second, I argue that the conversion

A Brief History of Equality

ents to book, chapter, and Bekker page number.

The pervasiveness of inequality in Aristotle’s philosophy is signaled from the

unequal. Even if this conclusion is warranted in principle or in theory, however, it

Equality does, however, play a central role in Aristotle’s treatment of what he

If Aristotle’s philosophy is premised on inequality, then Hobbes is perhaps the first

1 All Else Being Equal: Overcoming the Egalitarian Norm�� 3

2 Cutting Your Cake and Having It Too: Or, Is Equality

3 A Psycholegal Model of Hostile Environments: The Role of

4 Exploring the Dark Matter of Objectification�� 97

5 Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Recovery from Severe and

6 Mental Illness, Dangerousness, and Police Power

7 That’s What Friends Are For: Mentors, Lawyers Assistance

8 After Violent Conflict: Justice, Well-being, and International

9 Complexity of Accountability for Mass Atrocity�� 223

10 Advancements in Arbitral Immunity and Judicial Review

11 Retired to Greener Pastures: The Public Costs of Private Judging�� 289

12 Recess in Primary School: The Disjuncture Between

13 Playground Conflicts: Everyday Opportunities for

thoroughgoing. He first divides “merit” in two: that which is by covenant or con-

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in refinement, civility, self-control, maturity, and higher cognitive processes. We